THE HOOKWORM PARASITE - KEY TO WHY THE SOUTH LOST THE CIVIL WAR, AND TO THE SOUTHERN WHITE TRASH STEREOTYPE

 
BOOK BITS:   "PARASITES"

by Rosemary Drisdelle 
Chapter 4 - ILLEGAL ALIENS - (edited excerpt)

Where the term "White Trash" comes from,

and why the South lost the Civil War. 

The setting

The year is 1694; the place is Jamestown, the oldest permanent settlement in what is now the United States of America. The Atlantic slave trade has been booming on the west coast of Africa for two hundred years, and will flourish for more than one hundred more.

Revenge of the slaves

With his first bowel movement in the new continent, the emaciated slave delivers something else from Africa: eggs of the hookworm Necator americanus. This parasite will make itself at home in plantations all over the south.

Deposited in a shady place where the soil is damp and contains abundant organic material, eggs hatch in a couple of days, releasing microscopic larvae. The larvae feed and grow and then infect other humans by penetrating exposed skin.

Slaves routinely went barefoot in the south, and their toilet facilities were rather primitive. Those who defecated on the ground continued to spread the worm that attacked slaves and whites alike.

But by a kind of serendipitous revenge, the worm was much harder on the white population than it was on the slaves - hence the name Necator americanus, literally "American killer."

Caucasians are more susceptible to hookworm disease than blacks are, probably a result of natural immunity in people of African descent. Whites also walked barefoot in the fields.
 

How the "American Killer" hookworm attacked its victims

The larvae slips under the outer layers of skin cells and burrows through to blood vessels. They ride the bloodstream to the lungs before breaking out and crawling up the airways to the throat. Swallowed, they arrive in the stomach and then the intestine.  As young adults, the parasites take a mouthful of intestinal lining as both an anchor and a source of nutrients. 

These parasites grow to about a third of an inch (eight and a half millimeters) long - pale worms with the head end curved into a hook and a mouth that gapes as though the creature is yodeling. Four cutting plates, like circular saw blades arranged around the mouth, keep the worms attached.
 

How the hookworm weakens its host

For the next five to fifteen years, each worm will cost its host a little more than half a drop of blood each day. Although this amount seems negligible, the main symptoms of chronic hookworm disease are those of anemia and protein deficiency, both results of intestinal blood loss. Hookworm infections can involve thousands of worms, and the bleeding is profoundly damaging over time, especially when the infected person's diet is poor.
 

A subtle, unintentional revenge against the slave masters

As the worms turned on the slave-masters, they instigated a wave of anemia, undermining the health and economy of the South.
 

The White Trash stereotype is born

So many southerners fell victim to hookworm that the classic appearance of the chronic hookworm sufferer was the template for a stereotype of the poor southern white - so-called white trash, a gaunt, pale, and listless scarecrow, lazy and usually barefoot. In fact, these southerners were more sick than lazy, too anemic to get through a day's work.
 

The hookworm infection changed United States history

When the matter of slavery came to a head in the American Civil War, the hookworm was well entrenched, acting as a sort of environmental friendly fire in the South. According to historian Thomas D. Clark, "No one can say just how much pellagra (niacin deficiency) and hookworm helped to sustain the Union."
 

It took until 1902 for the worm to be recognized. By then it was rampant in the southern United States. 

 

 
Visit author Rosemary Drisdelle's website
http://www.rosemarydrisdelle.com/

And her blog:
http://rdparasites.blogspot.ca/

Her book "Parasites" is one of the most interesting books on the subject I have ever read.  Although the very idea of parasites makes us squirm, she manages to write in a very interesting way. I highly recommend it.


MORE ON NECATOR AMERICANUS - HOOKWORM

CDC - Questions and answers
http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/hookworm/gen_info/faqs.html


The hookworm life cycle and additional information
http://www.dpd.cdc.gov/dpdx/HTML/hookworm.htm


General information
http://www.redorbit.com/education/reference_library/science_1/nematodes/1112845652/new-world-hookworm-necator-americanus/

MORE ON PARASITES ON THIS BLOG

http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/search/label/Parasites
 

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