Dr. Beaver first started working on medically important parasites when he took a job with the Division of Epidemiology, Georgia Department of Health in 1942. There he was involved in malaria and hookworm control programs. Malaria was rapidly disappearing from Georgia and he had plenty of time to work on hookworms. Ever since, he has had a very active interest in hookworms.

In his work in Georgia and later at Tulane, he found that, although there was a considerable amount of information available on hookworms, there was still much to be learned. The basic biology and the life cycles of the 2 human hookworms, Ancylostoma duodenale and Necator americanus, had been studied by many workers, including Chandler in India and Cort and his coworkers in the southern U.S. and elsewhere, but details were lacking. Little was known about immunity to hookworms, except that individuals developed little resistance to reinfection.