TROOPS AS GUINEA PIGS

Chronicle (Levin), 28 May 1946, Page 5

TROOPS AS GUINEA PIGS

1 : TO FIGHT MENACE OF JUNGLE DISEASE Received Monday, 8,50 p.m. | SYDNEY, May 27. i The full story of the fight against scruh typhus which threatened to jeopardise xhe Australian campaign against the Japanese in New Guinea, is related in the latest issue of the Medicar Journal of Australia. A.I.F. volunteers exposed themselves deliherately to the infection and were largely responsible for bringing the disease under control. Experiments were conducted at Dobo- . dure, New Guinea, in August, 1913, when the incidence of scruh typhus among the jungle fighters was causing grave concern. Australian experts experimented with a new compound, ; dibutyl phthalate, and found it as ef j fective as dimethyl phthalate advocated | by American doctors. Large numbers of Australian troops volunteered to act I as guinea pigs. As a result, other com pounds, including D.D.T., were discarded and stocks of dibutyl phthalate rush- ! ed to the forward troops. They were i used extensively from June, 1914, par- | ticularly during the Aitape, Wewak anrl ; Solomons campaigns. | A striking drop in the incidence of the disease followed from 360 cases ; monthly during 1943 to less than ten ! monthly twelve months later. During the last year of the war, the mean rate ! was only nine per cent. of the mean rate for 1943, despite the fact that more men than ever hefore were exposed to patroj conditions.