Heinz Mehlhorn • Zhongdao Wu • Bin Ye
Editors

2014

Parasites of humans and their house or game animals threaten mankind since its beginning at the early steps of human evolution. Many parasites like the thread worm Ascaris lumbricoides or the head louse Pediculus humanus capitis had become even specialists for humans and were distributed by wandering groups of the late Homo sapiens into the farthest spots on earth. Thus, it is not astonishing that humans became aware of this unwanted neighborhood and started the search for means to get rid of these aggressors. This occurred especially everywhere on the world where mankind reached the status of “high cultures,” e.g., the Assyrians, Babylonians, the Egyptians, the early Chinese, the Romans, the Mayas, Incas, or even as the Europeans in the so-called dark centuries of the Medieval.