A Liberian Journey

Creator

Richard Pearson Strong

Date

7/19/26

Coverage

Congo Town, Montserrado County, Liberia

Transcription

Monday, July 19th.

I went to Congotown Saturday afternoon with Dr. Willis in his motor; took George and Whitman with me. It is only about 10 to 12 miles outside Monrovia. The inhabitants live in either mud-thatched or palm-thatched houses in groups of a dozen or so, or scattered singly. I had Whitman take some pictures. I made an important finding from a medical standpoint. Among a group of people gradually collecting around us, some forty people, I noticed one girl of some 8 years of age (none of the children here ever know their ages) who appeared sickly to me and I asked a woman, who proved to be her foster mother, (really a slave child) what was the matter with her. She said she had “gravel.” I gave the woman a clean bottle and told her to take the child away and get me a specimen of her urine, as from her history I suspected she might have Schistosomiasis (Bilharzia). The woman returned several times without the specimen, but finally by persistence one was obtained. This morning, after centrifuging the specimen and examining it microscopically, numerous motile miracidia which had just hatched from the ova as well as numerous lateral spined ova were found. This is our first official case in Africa and the first definite knowledge of the disease in Liberia. I have asked Bequaert to find some snails today. We will place them in water contaminated with urine and find out which snail transmits the infection, or rather in which snail the miracidium develops to the infective stage for man. This is the disease man acquires from bathing in infected water, from drinking it, or wading in bare feet in marshy places where snails abound. The parasite enters through the normal skin and then enters the veins, where it causes later in the kidneys haematuria and in the intestine dysentery. I have asked George to get this child into one of the mission hospitals and cure her with one of our new antimony compounds, which should be very effective in such a case.

In another part of the town George called my attention to a disease of the Mandioca (cassava) plants growing about the houses. He thought this might be the disease I found in the Amazon. That however was due to gall midges (Cecidomyidae). This was an affection resembling the group of diseases known as mosaic. We brought back plants and on microscopical examination of the latex of' the leaves and stalks I found bacillary forms resembling bacteria. Stained specimens showed these were probably bacilli. I had Theiler and Linder get out the culture media and make some cultures from the latex of the diseased plants. If the bacillus is cultivable in artificial media we will try to inoculate healthy plants and reproduce the disease. This is the first time I have ever found bacteria-like bodies in the latex of a plant and I think it may have some significance. I took Whitman back yesterday afternoon and had him make some photographs of the diseased and healthy plants. There is evidently a very extensive epiphytic of the disease. I found most of the plants affected over more than an acre of land. The disease causes a wilting of the plants, distortion, curling and atrophy of the leaves and areas in the leaf from which the chlorophyll is not present and the leaves show a yellowish tint. The affection extends (macroscopically) from the veins and it is evidently a systemic disease. I also had Theiler make and stain some blood smears from the monkey (Cercopithecus diana) we got in the interior and which was turned over to Allen for skinning. In these I found forms of haematozoa which correspond in monkeys to the malarial parasites in man. Although the day was the first one spent with my microscope and the beginning of new scientific work, I shall not be ready for routine scientific work for a few days. This morning I have my appointment with the Secretary of the Interior.
Saturday evening Mr. Ross and Mr. and Mrs. Hines who live together had the whole party and Dr. and Mrs. Willis (our hosts here) to dinner. At the end of the dinner I got up and said a few words of thanks and appreciation for all they have done for us. While as they say they have only done what Mr. Firestone told them to do, it is the friendly way in which they have done it that one most appreciates. They certainly have been wonderfully kind and greatly contributed to our comfort by housing and caring for us as they have done. I said, in trying to thank them, the thought which came to me, that one of the choisest blessings of Life is memory combined with hope and that as we went into the interior and onward across Africa we would always have the memory of all the kind things they had done for us and the friendship they had shown us and that we would also have the hope of meeting them again and of renewing these happy days and the friendships made here, etc. There was much champagne before and during and after the dinner. That is the wine which is apparently most consumed here. After the dinner the two ladies and some of the younger members of the party danced to the “victrola.” You see that trip I took to New York to meet and see Mr. Firestone, last winter in New York, has borne fruit. That half hour’s talk with him evidently interested or impressed him a little for as he wrote me in London, “I have written Mr. Ross and Mr. Hines to secure a house for you in Monrovia and to do everything possible for you and your party.” I am indeed very grateful to him. It has been much better for the men not to have gone into tents at once before they had become acclimated.

Type

Diary

Citation