WAR ON DISEASES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20087, 26 October 1928, Page 20

WAR ON DISEASES.

SCOURGE OF THE CONGO.

NEW SCIENCE MISSION

DREADED SLEEPING SICKNESS

Two young scientists left London in August on ;i mission which, if successful, may save thousands of lives and be equal in importance to the discovery of a continent. They were Dr. Clement C. Chestemail, of the Baptist Missionary Society and a secretary of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine, and Dr. W. k. St rat - man Thomas, research pharmacologist at the University of Wisconsin. They left on a six weeks' journey to the Belgian Congo, carrying with them compounds and vaccines to combat sleeping sickness and yellow fever.

Years of experiment have been necessary to arrive at the compounds which Dr. Chesterman and Dr. Thomas are using in their tight against sleeping sickness. Their basis is arsenical and the new chemicals were prepared under the direction of Dr. A. S. Lovonhart, Professor of Pharmacology the University of Wisconsiru Dr. Lovonhart was present when his voting emissaries left. He described his formula as "the logical of a series of compounds." " 1 say ' logical , be said, " because of our continued endeavour to bear in mind the climatic and at tier conditions absent during the experiments we have made in our research. The Sleeping Sickness. " We have had gratifying results on animals and also, in part, on human beings; but full experiments on human beings are not possible outside tiopical Africa, as the' disease, thank goodness, is

regional. " Sleeping sickness —not to be confused with the sleepy sickness occasionally found in England and America —is the most dreadful disease of tropical Africa. It kills of I: titc natives in thousands, and devastates all domestic animals in the neighbourhood; so that if tho native chalices to escape the epidemic, his cattle, and therefore his livelihood, are lost." Dr. Chesterman, who has been working at Yakusu. Hospital, in the Belgian Congo, a district located at the geographical centre of Africa, since 1921, confirmed Dr. Lovonhart's remarks. The writer asked him if lie thought the natives would place any obstacle in their way for conducting

the tests. " On the contrary," he replied, "we have been able to give relief and prevention from further attack in other illnesses by inoculation, and the natives have great faith in the needle. They come to us for it for most minor things, and trust in it implicitly."

Work in Native Villages. Dr. Chestennan's hospital was expected to be the centre of Dr. Thomas' work, although the latter stated that he expected to go out to the native villages in the neighbourhood of Stanleyville. 'lt will be impossible to accommodate in a hospital the number of patients I shall treat, he said.

Dr. Thomas minimised his own part in flic undertaking, and asked that credit should be given to the three institutions which made his work possible—his own university at Wisconsin, where he did his preliminary work, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, under whose auspices his African mission is being carried out, and the firm who supplied him with the arsenical compounds. The three scientists told more of their hopes, and how the new arsenical compounds have proved superior to the drugs hitherto used. With the light of high ideal, they explained that those in present use have been able to keep subjects immune against sleeping sicknss only for a period as short as three weeks or a month, but the new compounds, they hope, will provide immunity for from three to. six months. The longer the period of immunity, the easier it will be to break the cycle of the disease.

Dr. Lovenhart is to continue his strivings. He aims at a compound that can be taken by the mouth and not injected. This would afford greater facilities for storing and be continually available. Vaccine for Yellow Fever.

Dr. Chesterman, who is the author of the " Handbook for African Dispensary Practice," and in whoso district sleeping sickness has been reduced to the almost miraculous figure of one quarter of one per cent, of the population—due, he states, to vigilant care and sanitation—has a double mission, for in addition to working in co-operation with Dr. Thomas, and placing his hospital at his disposal for sleeping sickness work, he is to wago war on vellow fever. .

Pointing to his luggage, hp said: "I have with me vaccine for 1000 cases of yellow fever, and shall stop at Matadi, the port of the Congo, to conduct experiments there.

" Yellow fever is a port-town diseiise, as it is carried by the mosquitoes off the ships. The vaccine is new, and is the result of months of labour by Dr. Hindle, of the Wellcome. Bureau of Scientific Research. lam proud that Tam able to take Dr. Hindle's vaccine for the first time to Africa."