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Hookworm infection
was another noncontagious disease that was politically volatile. Southern
"crackers" were described as lazy and indifferent to work. In 1901, Dr.
Charles Wardell Stiles discovered the American hookworm while working for
the U.S. Department of Agriculture and realized that it was the cause of the
anemia that plagued so many Southern workers. The press hailed him as the
discoverer of the "germ of laziness." Wanting to continue his studies in
human populations, Stiles moved to the Hygienic Laboratory in 1902 as the
first director of the new Division of Zoology. |