MOLLUSKS AND MEDICINE — ABBOTT 327 



CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE DISEASE 



Fortunately, two medical units capable of temporarily coping 

 with the menace were stationed on Leyte Island when the schisto- 

 somiasis outbreak occurred. Combined medical guns were opened 

 on the problem by the Fifth Malaria Survey Detachment under Maj. 

 M. S. Ferguson and the Army Medical Research Unit under Maj. 

 F. B. Bang. Both officers were on military leave from the Rockefeller 

 Institute for Medical Research. The method of treatment for the 

 disease by the injection of an antimony drug called fuadin had been 

 rather well worked out by previous workers, so that the immediate and 

 most important problem became one of preventive medicine — how to 

 keep our men from catching the disease. This involved a laborious 

 survey of military personnel and natives in the endemic area, a search 

 for waters inhabited by the deadly snail, and the introduction of a 

 rigorous educational progi'am among the troops. Signs blossomed 

 out over the entire area wherever infectious waters were located. 

 Slogans of "Danger ! Snail fever ! Keep out of this river," "Schisto 

 and death here ! Don't swim in these waters," became the roadside 

 counterpart to the "Come to Smith's Beach. Excellent swimming" 

 billboards at home. 



The Army and Navy, however, were as much interested in a thorough 

 research attack on the problem as they were in an immediate solution 

 of the Lej'te situation. They wanted to be prepared for similar epi- 

 demics if and when we sent troops into the highly endemic areas of 

 China's Yangtze Valley and the Japanese home islands. The Army 

 sent out to the Philippines, and later Japan, the Commission on 

 Schistosomiasis, headed at first by Dr. Ernest Carroll Faust, schisto- 

 somiasis specialist, and later under the direction of Dr. Williard H. 

 Wright, expert on public health matters and chief of the Division of 

 Tropical Diseases at the National Institute of Health. From Commo- 

 dore Thomas Rivers' unit on Guam, the Navy dispatched two doctors 

 and a snail specialist. The use of the latter, a mollusk man, repre- 

 sented the first time that a military organization had employed a 

 malacologist for snail research. 



Long after the last of the schistosomiasis cases among our men had 

 been reported and successfully treated, this group of scientists were 

 continuing their research. The Army group went on to Japan and 

 the Navy team was sent into China. Our knowledge of the distribu- 

 tion, habits, life cycle, methods of survey and identification, and con- 

 trol of the schisto-carrying snail was increased tenfold. Successful 

 repellents and protective clothing were developed. Substantial ad- 

 vancements were made in chemotherapy and methods of surveying 

 for the disease. 



