This is an aside that I can't resist.
A few months ago National Geographic did an article on allergies.
What the article essentially said (and I am really paraphrasing here) was 
that allergies  are unknown in undeveloped countries like Africa where there 
is a huge problem with intestinal parasites. The article went on to say that 
some scientists and reseachers are wondering if there is a link between 
intestinal parasites and allergies....if, somehow, "worms" (Gross!) tend to 
help prevent allergies.
I'll  keep my seasonal hay fever, thank you.
I wonder if the colonists suffered from allergies when they got here.
DFM

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sunshine49" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2007 11:20 PM
Subject: Re: Slave Narrative for WPA Project


> Google only had 77,000 hits [of course I had to look it up!]; there  are 2 
> varieties in the Americas, they grow only in warm climates,  thrive in 
> loamy or sandy soil, require a certain amount of rainfall  and warm temps, 
> all such as are found in the south. It was thought  that they were brought 
> over with African slaves, as they are not  found in northern Europe, but 
> recent discoveries show they were here  before European exploration. They 
> do cause anemia in people with poor  nutritional levels to begin with; 
> well fed people can be  asymptomatic. The worms also cause a leakage of 
> protein in the gut,  and while not fatal in themselves, they can cause 
> death by secondary  disease due to the weakened state of the person. They 
> also lead to  deficiencies in folic acid [which we have recently learned 
> is vital  to the development of healthy babies] and B12, which would only 
> compound the anemia by making iron that much harder for the stomach  to 
> absorb. Nasty little critters any way you look at it.
>
> Nancy
>
> -------
> I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.
>
> --Daniel Boone
>
>
>
> On Mar 1, 2007, at 10:37 PM, Sunshine49 wrote:
>
>> Interesting theory, thanks. I believe one effect of hookworms is  anemia 
>> as well. Not very good, when you don't have a rich diet to  begin with. 
>> It might explain the instances of pica in the south,  women eating dirt, 
>> etc., it's common with anemia to eat weird  things in an effort to 
>> alleviate it. I'd still love to know about  the origins of hookworms, if 
>> they came over from Europe, or if they  weren't a problem with the 
>> natives who had little in the way of  animals living with them, unlike 
>> the whites and later freed blacks.  Google probably has 546,000 hits...
>>
>> Nancy
>>
>> -------
>> I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.
>>
>> --Daniel Boone
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mar 1, 2007, at 9:32 PM, Anita L. Henderson wrote:
>>
>
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