 He found thousands of adult ancylostomes in the small bowel of a 20-year old soldier who was suffering from severe diarrhoea and anaemia (labelled at the time as Egyptian chlorosis).The subject was revisited in Europe when there was an outbreak of "miner's anaemia" in Italy.During the construction of the Gotthard Tunnel in Switzerland (1871–1881), a large number of miners suffered from severe anaemia of unknown cause.