Hookworm infection was another noncontagious disease that was politically volatile. Southern "crackers" were described as lazy and indifferent to work. In 1901, Dr. Charles Wardell Stiles discovered the American hookworm while working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and realized that it was the cause of the anemia that plagued so many Southern workers. The press hailed him as the discoverer of the "germ of laziness." Wanting to continue his studies in human populations, Stiles moved to the Hygienic Laboratory in 1902 as the first director of the new Division of Zoology.