WEBVTT - Selects: Southerners Aren't Lazy and Dumb, They Just Had Hookworm 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:03.440 M Hi everyone, It's me Josh and for this week's 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:07.000 s Y s K Selecta, I've chosen a rather peculiar 0:00:07.040 --> 0:00:11.399 episode that peaks in on a strange and fascinating quirk 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:15.400 of nature and geography that changed the course of history. 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:19.200 A lot of the sciences and humanities are covered here, 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:23.240 and it is a gross episode, but it's also engrossing, 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:26.960 so please enjoy this one on hookworms and the South. 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:34.479 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:43.880 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:49.320 There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry Rowland. She goes, 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:54.000 she just ran away after nine years. I knew that 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:56.920 would happen eventually. Yep. She had her little bendel sack 0:00:57.040 --> 0:01:01.000 over her shoulder and she's barefoot, which is dangerous. Jerry, 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:05.640 that was a nice little set up. Yeah, you might 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.520 get uh, what do you call it, the do itch? Yeah? 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:13.680 Or well that's the best one, the ground itch do, 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:18.080 which is way better than ground get a little discomfort 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:23.080 in the webbing between your toes, a little scratchy. Maybe 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:27.959 a few days later you're like, this is this athlete's foot? No, 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:30.640 that doesn't make you cough. Yeah. Plus, you're no athlete. 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:34.160 Don't flatter yourself, that's what they would say. And then 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.240 you start coughing a little bit, and a few weeks 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.560 after that, you're just a big dope that can't lift 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:43.080 an arm. Do you go stand up and do anything? 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:50.400 You have hookworm? Yeah? Uh, well, there you have it. 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:53.680 Were you told as a child like you'll get worms? 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:56.160 And you're gonna ask me that because I grew up 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:57.840 in the South, Well no, I mean I was told 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:02.120 that too. I don't remember hearing this stuff. I remember 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:07.760 being scared about uh, scoliosis, and I remember being scared 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:14.000 about nuclear annihilation and so as I um, and that's 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.840 about it. Razors and apples at Halloween, yeah, which is 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:23.280 as we've covered, not true. Any instance that happened to 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:29.760 that happened because of the urban legend not gi uh No, 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.000 I've never really heard of this. And what made you 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:36.520 think of this? By the way, I don't know you 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:40.840 like the parasites. I love parasites. They're interesting, especially this 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:44.600 particular parasite, because it turns out the hookworm might be 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:48.639 the most interesting of all of the parasitic worms here 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:51.640 on planet Earth. If you ask me. Well, agreed, because, 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.080 as you will see, the social context in the Southern 0:02:55.200 --> 0:03:00.440 United States of what the hookworm meant over centuries never 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:03.200 knew about it, and it's pretty astounding. And as someone 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:07.480 who has long had to defend the South as not 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:09.840 just a backward place with a bunch of dumb yokels, 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.320 I'm just gonna from now on, I'm just gonna say, hookworm. 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:17.760 Look it up. Listen to our episode, and people right 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:19.560 now are going, what in the world. So let's well, 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:22.120 let's get into it. Let's remove their the fog of 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:27.520 curiosity and maybe irritation a little bit and start talking 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:31.280 about hookworms. Right, so we said you it starts with 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:35.200 your foot. Yeah, these are round worms. Yes, they're a 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:38.880 type of round worm, a nematode right, yeah, nematode phyle 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:42.920 um um. They're pretty young, about four million years old. 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:46.640 And uh, they have been described in this article you 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:51.880 set most commonly as a as far as the way 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:55.320 they look as a tube within a tube like a 0:03:55.360 --> 0:04:00.040 pair of socks. And then at one right at and 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:07.560 in they have cutting plates also called fangs or teeth. Mouthparts, yeah, 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:11.480 mouth parts, and as Tracy Wilson would put it, and 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.560 um they use those things for sucking blood. So what 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:17.520 they want it's your blood because they get nutrients from 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:21.440 your blood and that makes them parasites. Yeah, and they 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:25.720 as as we sourced a few really great articles on this. 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:28.480 But um as one of them points out to that 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:34.360 a good parasite or a good hookworm doesn't want to 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.400 kill you because, as it says in this article, that 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:39.800 means the ride is over, right exactly. They want to 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.080 keep you alive and lazy so they can just keep 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:47.160 reproducing and keep sucking on your blood forever and ever 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:53.520 and ever. And in a very large part, fookworms have 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:56.240 covalved with humans, and they've done so in a way 0:04:56.279 --> 0:05:00.680 that they get the maximum benefit out of infecting a 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:05.480 human um without the pitfall of killing the human and 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:09.279 ending the ride for themselves. Right. So um and they've 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:11.279 had four hundred million years to do it. And there's 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:15.160 two kinds of hookworms. Mainly, there's tons of hookworms. Like 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:19.039 from what I understand, just about every animal. Every mammal 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:22.680 has its own type of hookworm, but they don't infect 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:27.200 cross animal typically. And there's two types of hookworms that 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:33.800 infects humans specifically, there's the New World hookworm naricatur Americana 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:37.560 is very open minded. And then there's the old word 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:44.280 world hookworm uh and solostoma duodenale minded right, and so 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:51.360 both of them thrive in warmer tropical ish climates and 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:58.000 the an AMERICANUS in particular loves sandy, loamy soil. And 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:00.520 it just so happens that in the America in south 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:06.160 has just the kind of climate to host an American 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.320 it's and it's around. Yeah, so here's what happens. We 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:12.120 were kind of kidding around about Jerry walking around barefoot. 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:15.400 But Jerry's old like me, and she grew up in 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:18.680 the South. We were all we all come from sharecroppers 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:23.480 and uh had outhouses. So here's what would happen um 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:28.560 all the way up until like which is kind of distressing. Yeah, 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:31.599 I thought so too. You could walk around barefoot, as 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:36.040 uh Southern children were wanted to do. Yeah. Apparently the 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:40.840 chances of your of being a kid with shoes, especially 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:44.280 in the rural South, was like next to nothing up 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:49.400 until that maybe the fifties or sixties. Really yeah, Uh, 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:52.440 so they would like we talked about the do uh 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:54.920 the do it? She would walk around barefoot. These little 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:58.760 guys would get between your toes, uh, root into your 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.400 body through the feet, make their way to the blood 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:05.200 vessels and start the voyage to the lungs. This is 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:08.920 it's a fantastic voyage. Well for them it is. Yeah. Um, 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:13.080 it's like inner space. Yeah um, up through the lungs, 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.840 finally through the circulatory system to the lungs where eventually, 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:20.880 like you said, you then you cough it up with 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:24.120 a dry cough and then you swallow it into your 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:26.960 gut and the intestine. And that's when it's like, this 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:28.560 is where I wanted to be all along. And the 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.680 nuts they go up through the foot circulatory system to 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.520 the lungs, make you cough, then you swallow them and 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.280 then they finally get to the place where they're supposed 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:40.080 to be, the small intestine, and they latch on and 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:43.880 they start sucking blood. Yeah. And hookworms are interesting tape 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:48.360 worms or hermaphroditic, but hookworms, like a lot of around worms. Uh, 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:50.480 they need to do it. Yeah, I was about to 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:53.120 say they like to who knows, maybe a little bit 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.480 both depending on the mood. They have to in order 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:59.560 to reproduce. So what you do is they get into 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.480 that into ston they find a lover. They take a lover. 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:07.640 Excuse me, Robert Lamb in here, they take a lover 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:12.280 and then they attach theirselves to the intestinal wall and say, 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.560 I'm here forever. I'm gonna I mean up to I've 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:18.280 seen up to thirty thousand eggs a day. Right, the 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:22.880 female will will lay thirty thousand fertilized eggs a day. Right, 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:26.240 And that's on the highest end. But you know, let's 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:28.600 say the low end is ten thousand, and say the 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.280 low end is a thousand. It's still a lot of eggs. 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.719 And that's just one female worm. Right, you can have 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.959 dozens hundreds of these things. They found that um, the 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:43.960 a human can host up to about five hundred worms 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:48.640 and survive. You're not living a very fulfilling life, as 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.560 we'll see, but um, you you could have a number 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:54.440 of these worms all pumping out eggs and the worm 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:58.200 typically lives between one and five years in the comforts 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:01.640 of your gut. And they in um, you can also 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:05.640 be reinfected. And here's how right, So when the females 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:08.800 are spreading out a thousand to thirty thousand eggs, take 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:12.240 your pick. On a daily basis, you're pooping those eggs 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:16.400 out and if you're pooping in say, like uh like 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:20.360 by the bushes or in some sort of like outhouse. Yeah, 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.520 it's eighteen seventy five in West Virginia. You don't have 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:26.960 indoor plumbing, right, and let's say your outhouse isn't all 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.000 that great, or you're just again pooping in the bushes. 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:34.840 You are probably not wearing shoes. Those two things usually 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:37.320 go hand in hand. And so you're stepping in your 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:41.520 old fecal material that's still had eggs in it before 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:45.520 those eggs have since hatched into larva. Larva gone through 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:49.199 the first two larval stages, entered the third infective larval stage, 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:52.640 and now it's crawling up into your foot again, and 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:56.679 you're what's called worm burden is expanded even further from 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:00.800 one or two to ten to twenty two up to hundreds. Yeah, 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.800 and that's if you just accidentally step in old pooh, 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.880 whether it's like spread around by animals walking around or 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:12.120 by the rain. Um, the chances of are exponentially more. 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:15.160 If you have a good old fashioned poop slinging fight. Sure, 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:19.240 you you know you don't want to get hit in 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.360 the mouth, but oh my god, UM, the other problem 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:26.520 that um well, it was part of the problem was that, uh, 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:30.480 that was the second version of that even was that 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.840 people were using poop as fertilizer. Now it's one thing 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:37.840 again you can't really catch I'm sure you can catch 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:39.920 some worms. I know trick gnosis is a problem for 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:44.559 humans and that's a pork worm um. But you you 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.680 using say, horse manure is relatively safe compared to using 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.679 human manure as fertilizer in your field. That's a relatively 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:59.199 recent discovery. People were using human manure as fertilizer for very, 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:02.840 very very long time, and it was called night soil 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:06.199 because at night, the guys would come out and clean 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:11.040 your your privy out and walk the muck, your poop, 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:14.240 your FeCO material down the street and collect more and 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:16.800 collect more, and then they would turn it into fertilizer. 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:19.839 Would say, release the night soil right before they dumped 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.520 it exactly, and it would be fertilizer and it'd be 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:24.480 great to make a crops grow, but it also just 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:30.040 contaminate your entire field with hookworms. And then little kids 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.440 would go out and work the field shoeless and they 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:35.480 would become infected from that too. So there were all 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:39.760 these really great opportunities for people to become infected by 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:46.040 hookworms by but there the hookworm habitat followed a certain 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:50.559 a certain line from about West Virginia down to I 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:55.280 think East Texas. Uh, and beneath that line that was 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:59.840 the hookworm belt. And above it they used human manure 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:04.199 for fertilizer too, but they didn't have hookworm. It was 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:06.599 in the South that the hookworm was a problem, and 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:09.920 it was a big problem, it turned out. Yeah, it 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:12.800 just occurred to me. We walked right past maybe the 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:16.680 best band name of all time in here, what worm burden? 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:20.760 Oh yeah, Wormbirds is pretty good. Um. All right, well 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.360 that's the setup, uh before we hit you with a 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:27.120 social context. So let's take a little break here and 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:30.600 we'll talk a little bit more about my old kinfolk 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:56.960 right after this. Alright, so before we broke, we talked 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:00.760 about what the hookworm is and all the different, uh 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.839 myriad ways which it could spread, from accidentally walking in 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:08.319 poop to poop slanging fights, night soil nights released the 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:13.199 night soil rolling in it to ultimate rotically increase your 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:18.080 worm burden. Um. So you found this great article called 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:21.120 how a worm gave the South a bad name by 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:25.480 a woman named Rachel Newer. Um, it's on Nova. Yeah, 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:27.880 it was really good, and she is from the South 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:30.920 and kind of wrote it from that point of view. Um, 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:33.719 and I get the feeling like, like me, she kind 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:37.000 of his long head to defend the American South as Hey, 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:39.360 we're not a bunch of dumb, lazy yokels. Because that 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:43.480 was you know, for a long time, um, and still 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:47.520 continuing today to a certain degree. Yeah, that notion kind 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:49.960 of exists that if you're from the South, you're kind 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:52.079 of slow, you may be a little dim witted, you 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:55.480 may be lazy. And this was you know, for white folks, 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:59.920 Black folks, Native Americans, just something about the South made 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:04.960 you lazy and dumb, especially among the lower socioeconomic classes. 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:11.400 And this wasn't just like off the cuff um stereotyping. 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:15.160 It was rooted in fact, in reality, there was something 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:20.080 different about people of a of the lower socioeconomic classes 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:22.160 in the South. Specifically, if you put them side by 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:28.400 side among the same socioeconomic classes of the North, the 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:30.280 ones in the North would be like, let's shovel some 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:32.720 cold baby, and the ones in the South would be like, 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:35.680 I'm just gonna lay here down next to my wheelbarrow 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:38.720 because I can't I can't get up. And so Southerners 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:42.480 were came to be seen as lazy, shiftless, couldn't be 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:46.240 trusted to do an honest day's work, and they just 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.280 thought it was part of the Southern character. Yeah. And 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:53.800 this wasn't just um a perception, like they literally lagged 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:59.080 behind the North in terms of productivity, um economic development. Uh. 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:00.760 And we'll you know, we'll talk about some of these 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:03.800 statistics as we go. Well, Plus the Civil War didn't 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:09.280 help anything either. Well, Now, that was obviously a big setback, right, 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:11.400 so it would have buried in the South, and it 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:15.400 would have been for any region right at level of 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:20.520 devastation and um um death. But coupled with their already 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:24.400 predisposition to this, that what what came to be called 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:28.160 the lazy germ Uh it was, it just set it 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:30.640 back even further. Yeah. And at one point in the 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:37.200 American South up to fort amazingly of the population, like 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.040 you said, from southeastern Texas to West Virginia and all 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:44.800 the way down, um was infected with hookworm. Yes, that's 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:47.560 a lot of people. I mean, it's obviously not a majority, 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.920 almost a majority that would have it would have been 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:56.080 a dumb Southerner. I mean, that's a lot of folks. 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:59.000 It is a lot of folks, And that was the 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:06.200 culprit mind this lazy shiftlessness among the poverty stricken Southern 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:11.080 poor and the rural. The poverty stricken, rural Southern poor 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:14.760 was apparently the majority of the South from the end 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:17.760 of the Civil War up until the I believe the 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:22.720 mid nineteen or mid twentieth century. Um, you were if 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:25.320 you were a Southerner, it was likely that you were 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:28.400 poor and did not live in the city until about 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:31.720 the forties. And there's a pretty clear demarcation line if 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:34.040 you did if you were wealthy in the South, or 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:36.000 you were lived in the city in the South in 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:40.760 the nineteenth and early twentieth century, you wore shoes, you 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:44.600 had bed pans um, and you could probably avoid this. 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:48.440 But if you didn't like those are they It says 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.760 in this article that it was almost impossible to avoid 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:55.480 if you were poor and lived in the South, because 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:58.960 you also didn't have very good sanitation. No, you were 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:01.880 just was just perfectly set up for you to keep 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:06.159 getting reinfected. Um. You know, every couple of years you 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:10.720 shed a dead hookworm. But in that time, you probably 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:13.879 would have taken on several more. All right, so what 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:16.040 does this mean if you get hookworm, like we said, 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:19.280 it's it's likely not going to directly kill you. Uh, 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:22.920 you might die from a common cold. Um, you might 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:26.440 die from malaria or typhoid fever, or you know, something 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.119 else may ultimately take you out because your body is 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:32.960 so weakened. But what it does in large part is 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:36.320 it causes an iron deficiency. Yeah, if you're a pregnant 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:40.480 woman or a kid, iron deficiency is really bad. Um, 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:43.520 if you're a child, you need that iron for your 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:46.840 brain development. So you know, not only would you get 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:50.680 like physical symptoms like stomach bloat. Uh what what was 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:55.000 the the I thing? Like this? The dull, fishy stair 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:57.600 fishy i'd stare. Yeah, just sort of like they're basically 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:00.320 described these kids just sort of vacant, right, just staring 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:03.760 off into space. Um. So you know some of those 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:06.840 are physical symptoms, but others were literally like a lower 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:10.760 i Q. Right. And so they believe that an Americans 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:14.520 came over as a result of the Atlantic slave trade, 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:18.960 that it was imported from Africa. So for centuries, generations 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:23.800 of kids, Um, we're being born in the South who 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:31.280 had there, Um, they were physically and developmentally stunted by 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:38.159 hookworm infections. Yeah. Sometimes girls wouldn't begin menstruation. Boys a 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.280 lot of times would not even hit their growth spurts. 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:45.240 And not only where they had lower i q s 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:48.879 and learning, uh, you know, development disabilities, but they were 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:52.040 smaller and weaker. Yeah, and then you combine this loss 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:55.480 of blood. So so apparently about a hundred worms in 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.880 a in a normal adult will drink about a teaspoon 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:01.719 a day, which doesn't sound like that much. But if 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:06.919 you couple it that level of iron deficiency with uh, 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:11.720 pre existing malnourishment due to poverty or the lack of 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:15.439 availability of like good food, Uh, then it really becomes 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:17.520 a huge problem. And it goes from like this is 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:20.560 a problem to this is this is a catastrophic problem 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.520 that can keep an entire region of a country down 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:28.960 productive productively. Yeah. And it uh like a lot of 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:32.720 disease we've talked about, whether it's like famine or lack 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:35.960 of clean water. It's it's cyclical in nature, so it 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:39.040 would occur where there was poverty, and then it would 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:41.800 keep people from working to work their way out of poverty. 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:44.560 And it just kind of compounded on each other. Right, 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:47.080 and then think about slavery as well. Right, So, not 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:49.879 only have you been brought over to the US as 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:52.360 a slave, you're being forced to work against your will 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:55.600 in these horrific conditions. You're also being forced to work 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:58.800 and live in the same conditions that promotes hookworm. So 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:02.840 you're feeling lazy and shiftless. Ts for you you're a slave. 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:06.600 Add that to your toil and misery, right, you know, 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:10.000 I could just it just keeps getting worse. All right, 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.320 So I think we've made it clear, big problem in 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:16.400 the South, but again, no one had any idea why. Yeah, 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:18.640 it was just you know, the lazy South, and it's 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:22.000 you know, people have said that it literally set the 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:26.200 South back like decades and decades from the rest of 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:30.240 the country. No one knows what's going on. Until nineteen 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:33.680 o two, this dude came along and they should be 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:37.640 kind of a weird movie to market, but this would 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:40.280 be a good movie. I think the story of Charles 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:44.239 Styles and hookworm, it's a big roller coaster, right all right, So, uh, 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:46.720 nineteen o two, this guy named Charles Styles comes along. 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:51.919 He's a zoologist from from New York, city, educated in Europe, 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:54.640 no less, so he played real well in the South yeah, which, 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:56.280 as you'll see, it was a bit of part of 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.800 the problem. Uh. And the Department of Agriculture said, hey, 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:02.959 we need you to help these farmers down there keep 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:05.320 their animals healthy. So go down there and check things out. 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:08.320 And he was like he started to notice. He's like, 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:11.159 something's going on. These people are physically stunted. They're a 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:14.360 little off. Yeah, they're mentally stunted. And I don't think 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:18.200 they're just dumb and lazy. So he started apparently he 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:21.160 sounds like one of these guys that was just had 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:22.720 to get to the bottom of it something, you know, 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:26.400 Like he wouldn't just say, you know, oh well everyone's 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:29.520 right about how it is down here. So he really 0:21:29.840 --> 0:21:36.400 stuck to his instinct and realized that it was hookworm. Yeah. 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:38.639 He literally was the guy who discovered that that was 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:42.359 the problem exactly. I think he um he did that 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:46.399 by analyzing stool samples. So he basically just hung around 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:49.200 men's rooms. He said like, you're going to use that, 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:52.720 and they'd say, no, have at it. He just I 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:57.480 was educating by the way, exactly, and the people would 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:00.920 just walk away all right, is that I went down. 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:03.640 I don't know how it went down. I looked, Actually, 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:06.560 this guy is not the most celebrated person to ever 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:11.080 save an entire region from an infection. Um so, there's 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:14.680 not I didn't find a lot of background information on 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:18.080 him in particular. Um So, I have no idea how 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:20.760 it happened. I saw somewhere that said that he became 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:24.480 accidentally infected, and that's how he understood. Didn't see it 0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:28.000 backed up anywhere else. I have no idea how this 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:33.840 man came to say moment right, because again, you gotta 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:36.440 you have to be trading in fecal material here. So 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:40.280 like this guy had his hands on human poop at 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:43.480 some point, right, or thought to look there? I'm not sure. 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:45.720 Maybe he was in a good old fashioned poop slang. Inte. 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:49.840 It makes the most sense that he was. He's like 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:54.720 something's on to god, Oh it's a worm. Uh. The 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:58.880 point is, though he was not well received, local doctors 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:01.200 didn't want to hear it. They would listen. They dismissed 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:05.199 him as you know, this this carpetbag in Yankee from Europe, 0:23:05.920 --> 0:23:08.679 who you know, educated in Europe, who's down here telling us, 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:11.240 you know, he's he's an animal expert, and he's telling 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:14.520 us about our poop making us lazy. Yeah, crazy Europe 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:19.120 your animal expert. Yeah. They really didn't listen to him much. 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:21.240 So he was like, fine, I'll just go to John 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:23.240 de rock Feller and tell him I'm going to tell 0:23:23.280 --> 0:23:27.600 on you. That's basically what happened. Yeah, Rockefeller was this 0:23:27.760 --> 0:23:31.960 is at the time when income inequality was about at 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:35.200 the levels it was now, and the wealthy industrialists of 0:23:35.280 --> 0:23:38.640 the age were really really worried that they were going 0:23:38.760 --> 0:23:41.520 to have the social order overthrown by angry people, so 0:23:41.640 --> 0:23:44.199 they invented philanthropy. Right. Yeah, this is back when they 0:23:44.240 --> 0:23:47.720 worried about that kind of thing, right, And Rockefeller said, well, 0:23:48.200 --> 0:23:50.760 we can't just we can't do anything to actually support 0:23:50.920 --> 0:23:54.399 the problems that capitalism creates, because then we'll just be 0:23:54.480 --> 0:23:58.200 drawing attention to the fact that there are major problems 0:23:58.240 --> 0:24:01.879 with capitalist system. What else can I support? And he 0:24:01.960 --> 0:24:05.800 heard about Styles, and Styles took a meeting with Rockefeller 0:24:05.920 --> 0:24:10.560 and some of his his higher up friends, and apparently 0:24:10.680 --> 0:24:13.800 at that meeting they closed the deal, like we're funding 0:24:13.840 --> 0:24:16.240 this thing with the million bucks right out of the gate, 0:24:16.280 --> 0:24:18.720 which is about twenty six million today and they set 0:24:18.800 --> 0:24:24.680 up the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of hookworm disease. 0:24:25.520 --> 0:24:29.280 That's right. But um, despite the fact that they were 0:24:29.359 --> 0:24:34.679 trying to help Southerners, um, not only with a medical issue, 0:24:34.720 --> 0:24:38.920 but to advance themselves as a people. Um again, the 0:24:39.000 --> 0:24:41.879 Southerners A they didn't want a light being shown on 0:24:42.000 --> 0:24:45.960 this problem because it's gross, uh, and it has a stigma. 0:24:46.119 --> 0:24:49.360 But they didn't want um again. They didn't want these 0:24:49.440 --> 0:24:53.119 Yankees coming down there and saying they can fix you, 0:24:53.920 --> 0:24:57.680 you know. And Rockefeller said t s. He said, I've 0:24:57.680 --> 0:25:00.520 got an oyster edition named after me, maybe the best 0:25:00.600 --> 0:25:04.000 oyster dish besides raw. I'm glad you said that. Uh. 0:25:04.320 --> 0:25:06.280 Should we take a break? Yeah, all right, we're gonna 0:25:06.320 --> 0:25:08.360 come back and talk a little bit about the road 0:25:08.400 --> 0:25:40.240 to eradication right after this whom in your body food, 0:25:40.320 --> 0:25:46.359 don't do you good woman, your body and your food, 0:25:46.440 --> 0:25:52.600