32 
BRIEF REVIEW OF UNCINARIASIS IN THE UNITED STATES. 
In order to understand the American publications on this disease, it 
must be stated that much of the so-called ‘‘dirt-eating,’- “pica,” 
“cachexia africana,” antebellum “negro consumption,” “mal d’esto- 
mac,” “malnutrition,” and “malarial anemia,” described for the 
Southern Atlantic States, is in realit}^ due to uncinariasis. 
The earliest reference which seems quite positively to refer to this 
disease in this country, so far as I have yet found, is an article b}^ 
Dr. Pitt (1808, pp. 310-341), who sa}^s that along the Roanoke River, 
North Carolina, malacia or dirt-eating “prevails mostly among the 
poor white people and neg'roes, and originates, in my opinion, from 
a deficiency of nourishment.” Chabert’s (1821) description of the con- 
ditions of the slaves of Louisiana, which he attributed to dirt-eating, 
Jordan’s (1832, of Person Count}^, N. C.) account of “cachexia 
africana, or negro consumption,” Cotting’s (1836) account of the dirt- 
eating in Richmond County, Ga., Little’s (1845) description of the 
dirt-eaters of Florida, Le Conte’s (1845) account of the dirt-eating in 
the pine barrens of Georgia, Duncan’s (1850) record of dirt-eaters in 
St. Mary’s Parish, La., all appl}" so well to the uncinariasis I studied : 
in some of the same States that I have no hesitation in assuminp- that i 
man}^ if not all, of the cases were due to infection with Uncinaria. j 
Lethermann (Florida), Lyell (Georgia and Alabama), and Heusinger i 
and Geddings (South Carolina) are said to have published on similar \ 
conditions in the South, but not being able to trace their articles, I | 
am unfortunately unable to give them full credit for whatever views 
they may have advanced. j 
Blickhahn (1893a) seems to have been the first ph}"sician to recognize 
as such and to publish a case of uncinariasis for this country. The 
patient was a German brickmaker who had been in the United States 
seventeen months, and Blickhahn believes the infection took place in i 
Germany. It is true that Hertf (1894) records a case of supposed i 
uncinariasis observed in Texas in 1864, and Allen J. Smith (published | 
by Schaefer, 1901) found Uncinaria eggs in feces of man in Texas in 
1893, but these publications are antedated by Blickhahn’s article; i 
hence Blickhahn has prioriG" of discovery. It is, however, interesting j 
to note that Blickhahn’s case, being in a German, was probably caused by | 
the Old World parasite, Agchylostorna duodenale^ while the cases of 1 
Herff and Allen J. Smith were in all probability the first endemic cases I 
recognized. Herft’ did not appear altogether certain regarding his | 
diagnosis, but his short account of the worm indicates that the inter- 
pretation is correct. ' 
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ TU : — 
In all zoologic matters neither priority of observation nor priority of presentation 
before a scientific society avails to give priority of discovery. By international ; 
agreement, and by custom extending back a century and a half, zoologists recognize i 
only actual publication as governing a question of this sort. I 
