SOUTH SEAS MISSION.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume L, Issue 16321, 3 January 1924, Page 10

SOUTH SEAS MISSION.

TROPICAL DISEASE RESEARCH. Important investigations into the causes of the decline, of population in the Pacific Islands are about to be carried out by the London School of Tropical Medicine. Dr. P. A. Buxton, accompanied by an entomologist and bacteriologists, arrived in Wellington by the Athenic, and will leave for Samoa,- which, the expedition will make its headquarters. It will receive assistance from the New Zealand Government, and it, is intended to make an exhaustive examination into f he medical and hygienic problems which are connected with the inhabitants of Polynesia. “We expect to spend about two years over our investigations,” said Dr. Buxton to a Dominion reporter, “in the course of which we hope to learn something about tropical diseases generally, and especially about those which are making such havoc with the people living in tho islands of the Pacific. “The question has become an urgent one owing to the great decline of population in that part of the world, and we hope to contribute something towards a solution of the problem.” The importance of the new scientific expedition to Samoa lies in the fact that it is hoped that the medical knowledge derived from the investigations to be carried out by Dr. Buxton will be applicable to India and Africa and other Dominions. Dr. Buxton, a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge,' is already well known for tho work in entomology which he did in Mesopotamia, during the war, and also more recently as entomologist for the Palestine Government in Jerusalem. He eomesf of a family which distinguished itself in the past as pioneers in natural history. INFECTION BY MOSQUITO.

“lb is thought,” ho said, “that the great susceptibility of the Polynesians to diseases of all sorts, especially tuberculosis, and the great diminution of their numbers which is taking placei at the present time, is due to the universal infection of the worm which is known as filaria. The presence of this worm in the human body, and its transference from on human being to another, by the mosquito known as Stegomyda is now well known. The peculiar mosquito is apparently confined to the Pacific group, and wherever it is found, a particularly virulent form of filariasis in man ensues. Efforts to find a drug with which to kill filaria in the human cells have so far proved unsuccessful.

| “Acting on the information gained by | three other expeditions dispatched by the ! School of Tropical Medicine, a fresh nt- ' tempt will be made to wipe out the disease !by exterminating the mosquito, which ! causes it, on lines analogous to those adopted in the Panama regions and elsoi where. It appears that in this particular case the problem is a comparatively simple j one. The Stegomyia mosquito is one I which lives in and around coconut trees ; it is also found in the empty coconut shells which are stacked in the making ' of copra, and wherever the copra-making industry is most thriving, there this mosquito is most abundant. “It is proposed that Dr. Buxton and his assistants should take over some small island a mile or two in diameter, where every breeding-place of this mosquito will be effectively dealt with. The native method of storing water js in artificiallyhollowed coconut trees, and it is proposed to install in place of these primitive means of holding water, properly constructed cisterns for the supply of pure water. It is, furthermore, the opinion that this mosquito ertnnot exist where the dense undergrowth has been properly cut down. U is hv cutting air-ways or rides through (ho dense jungle and exposing the adult insect to the trade winds of the Pacific that the Stegomyia. will bo blown away. “It is quite possible that by adopting both these methods the mosquitos may within as short a period of time as one year, he so reduced in numbers as to be innocuous. It is thought that an objectlesson of this kind may he applied to the larger islands, and so to the whole of the Pacific, wherever filaria is rife. FURTHER OBJECTS IN VIEW. “There are a great many parasitic diseases in Samoa which are found in other parts of the tropics, and it is specially proposed to pursue the study of ankylostomiasis, which Dr. o*Connor found to be widespread in the islapds, a fact hitherto not sufficiently appreciated. The disease is believed to he responsible for further undermining the health of the natives and inducing their well-known proclivity to tuberculosis. Dr. Buxton is well equipped with instruments, and proposes to test the effect of the sun’s rays on the European skin by means of the catathermometer and other instruments dovised by Leonard Hill during the war. As a well-equipped ornithologist and entomologist, Dr. Buxton hopes also to take Track with him a large collection of birds (many of which are becoming extinct), hutterfiies, and insects for the British museum.” Dr. Buxton and his colleague, Mr. G. H. Hopkins, entomologist, of Cambridge University, leave by the Tofua about January 8 for Samoa.