Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1913-10-24
la:.TSSI
Foo or
ANcYdSTOZF
DLIOlEyHLE

presence stimulates human beings to eat clay and
earth. But there is another route, and one of the
romances of science must be explained. To
wards the end of the last century, when cholera
prevalent In Alexandria Doctor Looss, the
distinguished parasitologist, working in the
local laboratory at the larva of ancylostoma In
transferring some of the water containing larvae
from one watchgla to another by of
pipette he accidentally split drop on to the back
of his hand He did not wait to wipe it off, but
after time he noticed that the place where the
drop had fallen intensely irritable and had be-
come redeemed and infamed. He then made a
further experiment; placing crop of the fluid
swarming with larvae the back of his hand he
allowed 1t partially to dry up. The burning and
the reddening of the skin began again, and
little later when he removed what was left of the
fluid very few OF the larvae were to be found. The
great majority of them had disappeared These
little trifes gave Doctor Looss "furiously to
think" as the French say. and he then repaired
to the hospital where he found boy whose leg
was about to be removed. He dropped little of
the fluid full of ancylostoma larvae on the leg and
after the leg was cut of the area in question
removed and cut into sections. When these sec.
tons were examined through the microscope the
little ancyiostoma larvae seen forcing their
way down into the body through the skin, espe-
ciay travelling by the hair follicles and to
lesser extent, through the sweat glands into the
deeper layers Of the skin. II was, of course i'm
possible to pursue this work with the human
ancylostoma, and Doctor Looss had to carry on
his work with another species. The larvae of A
caninum we're traced into the blood vessels and
lymphatics of the dog. Swept along in the blood
stream they easily reach the lungs Once arrived
In the lungs the larvae have difficulty in trav-
ersing the soft pulmonary tissue and making their
way In the cavity of the respiratory organs
Thence they travel along the bronchial tubes and
10 to the windpipe and into the larynx and up al
most into the mouth, and here they turn back into
the oesoDhagus and so down into the stomach and
Intestine The whole of this remarkable tourney
takes from seven TO ten day. They then shed the
skin OF their second moult and later, when they
reach the alimentary canal they undergo a third
and fourth ecdysis or mout. In eight days they
become capable of reproduction, and In a very few
more days the eggs are then passing away from
the body Of the host. The whole cycle Of their
life-history has taken, under favorable circum-
stances, from month to six weeks under unfa-
yorable circumstances II can be almost indefinite
~ prolonged. The truth of this very remarkable
and. until Doctor Looss' Investigations quite un.
heard OF lfe-hisory Is accepted Doctor Sam.
bon. however. thinks that In many cases the an
cylostoma larvae reach the alimentary canal with
the blood stream. and directly penetrate its walls
without passing through the lungs.
Since the middle OF the seventeenth century
fatal disease has been known to exist in the
warmer parts OF America In 1913 Piso. IN his
Historic Medco Brazae" gives an account
OF disease which he calls "Qppilacao" and