SLEEPING SICKNESS

Hokitika Guardian, 23 December 1933, Page 6

SLEEPING SICKNESS

OUTBREAK IN UNITED STATES

MOSQUITOES UNDER TEST

Do mosquitoes spread sleeping sickness ? This was one of the problems confronting the doctors of St Louis, Missouri, United States, as they recently wrestled with an epidemic which lias been raging through the city in the course of the recent summer.

Swarms of pestiferous insects invaded St Louis in the summer heat, lending colour to the popular theory that they arc the cause of the disease. Three scientists offered to submit themselves to {mosquitoes which had already hitten the diseased patients. After several weeks all three scientists were well. The mosquitoes had not given theme the dread disease.

This happy result to a noble experiment suggested what many doctors believed, that the mosquito had nothing to do with the St. Louis outbreak.

However, Dr Pierce, of the Public Health Service in . “Washington, has •stated that the experiment cannot be accepted beyond its face value. He saiu if 100 people had been tested and none had caught the disease, the mosquito would even more certainly have, been proved innocent. With this in mind the Washington medical authorities persuaded 100 convicts in Mississippi and Virginia to submit themselves to similar tests to those taken by the scientists.

Doctors went by aeroplane to the two selected prisons, carrying with them mosquitoes fed on infected patients. The results of these new experiments were being awaited with interest. Judging by previous tests, it would appear that the convicts are on a good thing. They still run the risk of catching the disease. On the other hand, all arp. serving short terms, and freedom is the; reward in prospect when the tests are concluded.

The doctor pointed out that the Missouri epidemic bears no relation to the African disease (known as sleepy sickness). A present they are as far away as ever from knowing the origin of sleeping sickness,