Going to Kakrali school and Ankylostoma

On our way to Kakrali there was one main water creek (Kassi in Panjabi) with plenty of water running during rainy (monsoon) season. That was may be about two furlongs from our village so during rains we would go out and enjoy the natural shower without our shoes.
1947 Xmas holidays my brother (Bhaijan Meraj merhoom who was in his final year MBBS in Lahore) came and one look and told me, "You have Hook worms" and advised me to send my stools specimen with him for confirmation of diagnosis. I was impressed, Wow!! he must have inherited something from Father (Hakeem M Chiaghuddin merhoom whom I thought had some God-given gift for diagnosing and treating patients-- he was Hakim Ajmal khan's student having qualified in 1900 from Tibbia College Dehli).
To cut the story short, he was right and next month I went to Lahore (my first trip to this most remarkable city about which in our village it was said (and I believed it), " jinnay Lhore nayin wekhiya oh jammiya-ee nain" (whoever has not seen Lahore he is not even born). I stayed in the Hostel (Broom Hostel) with him, more about that my first visit to that city on some other occasion.
I was admitted overnight to The Mayo Hospital, medical ward (In which I myself became the "house Physician"10 years later) and given the classical anthelmintics (CCl4 and tetrachloethylene), passed the Ankylostoma Duodenale parasites with purgatives and discharged the next day (my first experience with a Hospital,, will have to write separately about that; Boy! what a smell it was and was I glad to get out of that ward).
Anyway! I realised then and also much later what was so easy to diagnose. That is another interesting story and that is not all I have to say about this Ankylostoma.
Panjabi village life is open air everything (or at least it used to be then). Except for winter which is short-lived, people usually live an outdoor life as most of the villages if not all are surrounded by small and large pieces of land for tilling and a variety of crops. Our area is no different (or it was not until the new businesses and banks and markets invaded us). We sleep outside or on top of roofs, out in the open; have tandoors fixed out side of homes as well as inside for cooking "roti" (also referred to as "top" in Panjabi). Large (front) yards make space for the animals like cows buffaloes and donkeys used for various daily jobs and of course dogs. Cots are therefore near these animals laid out etc. etc. The important thing is, no lavatories inside the houses. Yes "that " was also outside business. The importance and its relation to Ankylostoma becomes obvious now.
When I was new in my village I learned that many children were pale (Panjabi equal is "Phussay" and the palor was called Bhuss or Phuss--the panjabi pronunciation cannot be demonstrated in letters Iám afraid). All these children were fond of eating "Mitti" or "Chikni mitti" or "Pocha" (Medical student will recall one of the symptoms of hookworms infestation was "geophagy"). They were addicted to eating mitti or pocha.
You can now construct the whole etiopathological sequence of how I got that hookworm infestation. I recalled my "ground-itch" with which I suffered during those days of "natural showers" naturel lavatory out in the open)(and of course everybody using the  and I vividly recall the intense urge to eat pocha or mitti when I was in the village. You have to believe it, yes sir /madam,I did.
For nonmedical readers, briefly this is how it happens
Ova or cysts are passed in the stools and they find a human foot somehow (rainy season) and attach themselves to burrow in the skin of dorsum of foot (I had in between my big toe and second toe) which causes intense itching swelling and redness, heals up in a couple of days (and forgotten). The Ovum from the cyst finds it way into the blood circulation, (larva develops in   wet grounds where a carrier has passed stools containing cysts) and gets out into lungs and coughed and swallowed into the stomach, passes into the duodenum and attaches itself to the mucosa, becoming adult parasite (both male and female worms. They live happily ever after, sucking blood (Little Draculas) which is their food, thus depriving the poor patient of the redness).I was pale and had puffy face which is so typical of this infestation. My Hb. was 44% and yes I suffered palpitation I remember still vividly
Now you see it is easy to diagnose.
One more thing. Ankylotomaisis was one full question in the paper of Medicine when I sat my final MBBS (Thanks Ankylostoma, I owe you one)