The Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 1907. ANKYLOSTOMIASIS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3762, 11 April 1907, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 1907. ANKYLOSTOMIASIS.

The theories advanced by Dr. T. F. McDonald, who recently delivered an address in Wellington on “ The Humanist Interpretation of Crime,” have been subjected to some sharp criticism by Christchurch doctors, and Dr. McDonald expressed to a Press reporter surprise that his medical brethren should speak upon insufficient knowledge of his theories. “In my lecture,” he said, “I gave a general indication of the effect which humanist thought had had upon politics, religion, art, and science. Under the scientific head I indicated researches which I hud made into the psychological evolution of man, and following out the the experience I had had in the tropical disease, ankylostomiasis, or earth-eating, I indicated the trend of thought which led to a revolution in our views as to the origin of evil, vice, immoralty, and dime. My observations in regard to ankylostomiasis are not taken from books, but from experiment and experience, and I am in a position to prove that this disease is very largely responsible for a specific expression of intellectual and moral aberration. The symptom which gives the popular name to this disease is the eating of earth and other deleterious matter as a result of a perversion of natural appetites. The organism which causes the disease is about the size of an eyelash, and has a tentacular head. It fixes on to the intestinal membrane and sucks the blood directly from the tissues. These parasites exist in thousands, and they are continually laying eggs, which are passed in the excreta, and in hot climates mingling with the dust are blown about and may get on food or into water-tanks, and in this manner anyone is liable to infection. The physical symptoms are rapidly progressive ’ or pernicious—anaemia, with great physical weakness, and in the later stages Bright’s disease and dropsy. Children may contract the disease at a very early age, and it is remarkable how soon | a child affected by the disease! developes a taste for earth-eating. Means are taken by parents to ; stop the child eating earth, but the [ desire to obtain it in the child’s'

mind becomes greater than its sense of obedience. Finding it is punished for disobeying, the child resorts to cunning, and subsequently becomes a confirmed liar. This determination towards immorality runs a synchranous development with the physical disease. If the disease is not arrested at this stage other phases of mental or moral destruction to steal is the next phase, and parents are naturally astonished at a development of such features in their children. Then we come to the next feature, sexual perversion. I have brought this question before the medical profession in Australia and elsewhere. My reason,” said Dr McDonald, ” for mentioning the possibility of New Zealand becoming affected by ankylostomiasis, is to give a friendly warning that such a possibility is highly possible owing to the contiguity of this colony to the East. The Governments of the principal European countries are spending large sums in fightiugthe disease.”