rapid and cost-effective assay for the specific diagnosis of hookworm infection. Many are hopeful that its development can be achieved within the next five years. History Discovery The symptoms now attributed to hookworm appear in papyrus papers of ancient Egypt (), described as a derangement characterized by anemia. Avicenna, a Persian physician of the eleventh century, discovered the worm in several of his patients and related it to their disease. In later times, the condition was noticeably prevalent in the mining industry in England, France, Germany, Belgium, North Queensland, and elsewhere. Italian physician Angelo Dubini was the modern-day discoverer of the worm in 1838 after an autopsy of a peasant woman. Dubini published details in 1843 and identified the species as A. duodenale. Working in the Egyptian medical system in 1852 German physician Theodor Bilharz, drawing upon the work of colleague Wilhelm Griesinger, found these worms during autopsies and went a step further in linking them to local endemic occurrences of chlorosis, which would probably be called iron-deficiency anemia today. A breakthrough came 25 years later following a diarrhea and anemia epidemic that took place among Italian workmen employed on the Gotthard Rail Tunnel. In an 1880 paper, physicians Camillo Bozzolo, Edoardo Perroncito, and Luigi Pagliani correctly hypothesized that hookworm was linked to the fact that workers had to defecate inside the 15 km tunnel, and that many wore worn-out shoes. The work environment often contained standing water, sometimes knee-deep, and the larvae were capable of surviving several weeks in the water, allowing them to infect many of the workers. In 1897, it was established that the skin was the principal avenue of infection and the biological life cycle of the hookworm was clarified. Eradication programmes In 1899, American zoologist Charles Wardell Stiles identified progressive pernicious anemia seen in the southern United States as being caused by the hookworm A. duodenale. Testing in the 1900s revealed very heavy infestations in school-age children. In Puerto Rico, Dr. Bailey K. Ashford, a US Army physician, organized and conducted a parasite treatment campaign, which cured approximately 300,000 people (one-third of the Puerto Rican population) and reduced the death rate from this anemia by 90 percent during the years 1903–04. On October 26, 1909, the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm Disease was organized as a result of a gift of US$1 million from John D. Rockefeller, Sr. The five-year program was