American Murderer
The Parasite that Haunted the South
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Included on NPR's 2022 "Books We Love" List
Finalist, 2023 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction
ALSC Notable Children's Book
What made workers in the American South so tired and feeble during the 19th and early 20th centuries? This exciting medical mystery uncovers the secrets of the parasite hookworm, commonly known as the “American Murderer,” and is the latest title in Gail Jarrow’s (YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults award-winning author) Medical Fiascoes series.
Imagine microscopic worms living in the soil. They enter your body through your bare feet, travel to your intestines, and stay there for years sucking your blood like vampires. You feel exhausted. You get sick easily. It sounds like a nightmare, but that’s what happened in the American South during the 1800s and early 1900s.
Doctors never guessed that hookworms were making patients ill, but zoologist Charles Stiles knew better. Working with one of the first public health organizations, he and his colleagues treated the sick and showed Southerners how to protect themselves by wearing shoes and using outhouses so that the worms didn’t spread. Although hookworm was eventually controlled in the US, the parasite remains a serious health problem throughout the world. The topic of this STEM book remains relevant and will fascinate readers interested in medicine, science, history—and gross stories about bloodsucking creatures.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jarrow (Ambushed!) chronicles the discovery of a deadly parasitic hookworm, the campaign that endeavored to control it, and the epidemic's social implications in this prodigious work, part of the Medical Fiascoes series, which recounts U.S. public health crises occurring in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1902, zoologist Charles Stiles encountered a hookworm pervading the Deep South and named it Necator americanus, or "American murderer." The parasite spread through human feces and emaciated its victims, who numbered nearly three million. Believing hookworm was "an inevitable ailment of the poor class," middle- and upper-class white Southerners opposed treatment efforts. Stiles attempted to change their minds by manipulating their racial prejudices, stating that Black people "were better adapted to the parasite and more immune to its most harmful effects"—since it was thought to have originated in West Africa. Scientific and societal intersections are only summarily explored in this introspective work, which features straightforward prose and informative sidebars detailing other historical Southern maladies and the scientists who studied them. Photographs, diagrams, and microscopic slides are included throughout; a timeline, glossary, and additional information conclude. Ages 10–17.
