Nematology

Nematology is the scientific discipline concerned with the study of nematodes, or roundworms. Although nematological investigation dates back to the days of Aristotle or even earlier, nematology as an independent discipline has its recognizable beginnings in the mid to late 19th century.

Nematology research, like most fields of science, has its foundations in observations and the recording of these observations. The earliest written account of a nematode "sighting," as it were, may be found in the Pentateuch of the Old Testament in the Bible, in the Fourth Book of Moses called Numbers: "And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died". Although no empirical data exists to test the hypothesis, many nematologists assume and circumstantial evidence suggests the "fiery serpents" to be the Guinea worm, Dracunculus medinensis, as this nematode is known to inhabit the region near the Red Sea.

Before 1750, a large number of nematode observations were recorded, many by the notable great minds of ancient civilization. Hippocrates (ca. 420 B.C.), Aristotle (ca. 350 B.C.), Celsus (ca 10 B.C.), Galen (ca. 180 A.D.) and Redi (1684) all described nematodes parasitizing humans or other large animals and birds. Borellus (1653) was the first to observe and describe a free-living nematode, which he dubbed the "vinegar eel;" and Tyson (1683) used a crude microscope to describe the rough anatomy of the human intestinal roundworm, Ascaris lumbricoides.

Other well-known microscopists spent time observing and describing free-living and animal-parasitic nematodes: Hooke (1683), Leeuwenhoek (1722), Needham (1743), and Spallanzani (1769) are among these. Observations and descriptions of plant parasitic nematodes, which were less conspicuous to ancient scientists, didn't receive as much or as early attention as did animal parasites. The earliest allusion to a plant parasitic nematode is, however, preserved in famous writ. "Sowed cockle, reap'd no corn," a line by William Shakespeare penned in 1594 in Love's Labour's Lost, Act IV, Scene 3, most certainly has reference to blighted wheat caused by the plant parasite, Anguina tritici.

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