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Comment by InvaderFizz | Hacker News Reader

After the elimination of hookworms, air conditioning is what really made the difference in the south when it comes to economic development. Those summers are oppressive.

Anyone who grew up in rural areas of the south is generally on the lookout for chiggers, ringworms, ticks, hookworms, and pinworms.

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I grew up in N. GA and I vividly remember shtting out worms in about '98 and running to tell my dad. He called me wormy and that was the end of it. lol

No idea what I had, but we did run around barefoot outside and I did until I was around 12-13 when I stepped on a rusty can and damn near cut my pinkie toe off.

Apparently some worm larvae are small enough that they can get in through the pores in your feet. I remember reading that a big part of the parasite elimination campaigns in the south involved convincing people to wear shoes outside more often.

That or there were eggs on some food you ate.

Yeah, we still had some older folk that used outhouses so I wonder if it was through that. I've also considered dogs because we had so many that roamed free. We did grow our food from time to time.

Breaking the reproduction/re-infection cycle was key. Pickup up dog turds did make a difference, so too the widespread use of preventative drugs in pets. Not spitting in the street. Wearing shoes. Bathing in clean/chlorinated water, drinking clean water, proper sewage, and tacking any local infections with serious drugs ... all these things add up to cut the reinfection rate to the point that the parasites stopped spreading.

You probably had pinworms, which are much more common. 20% of kids in the US get pinworms at some point.

>ringworms

Which for those who may not know is a fungus, not an actual worm

I’ve never been so miserable as when I got covered in chiggers. Poison ivy was less maddening.

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