A Liberian Journey

Creator

Richard Pearson Strong

Date

9/23/26

Coverage

Gbanga, Hinterland, Liberia

Transcription

Thursday, September 23rd.

The filarial survey was carried on into the late hours of the night yesterday. I sent one of our interpreters to the huts nearby at eight o’clock to bring us about 100 people to have their blood examined for Filaria nocturna. He however returned with only about 25. I then asked Harold Coolidge to go and get some more. He was most successful and did such good work that we soon had a long line of waiting blacks outside in line. George took the specimens of blood and Theiler and I examined them. I found the parasites of Filaria diurna in a case about eight o’clock but by 11:30 they had all disappeared from the man’s peripheral blood (gone to sleep in his lungs, as is the custom of diurna). After that first case I did not find a single one infected, although I examined the blood of forty-six men. Theiler, however, was more successful and found F. nocturna in two cases of the forty-six men he examined. In all we made ninety-three examinations. We finished ten minutes to twelve. My eyes were tired as I had worked most of the day with the microscope and the artificial lamplight was an additional strain.

Today has been a very busy but most successful one scientifically for me. A case came this morning with an egg-sized tumor over his ribs in the right axillary line. In the section of the papillary layer of the skin covering the tumor I found the embryos of the coveted Onchocerca; there were nine of them wiggling about. In his blood, which I examined first, I found nothing; also in a section of skin of a papule on his wrist, which I had also examined previously, I also found nothing; but fortunately I persisted and examined again over the tumor, this time with success. I then got George and Theiler to remove the tumor and in the center of the tumor I found the adult female with many ova and embryos. This proves unquestionably that this parasite causes these tumors and so by these few days of persistent, hard and concentrated work the whole problem has been solved. We have all the material for a careful study of it. We began by finding a locality in which it seemed likely the insect might breed, then we found in this locality first the larvae and then the adult insect; next we found the embryonic filarial parasite in the infected fly and finally the human case with the embryos in the skin and the adult filaria with young in the center of the tumor. This is a great satisfaction. I should not have felt content to go away from here without working out this problem. But it is seldom that even hard and persistent work is so rewarded. We expect to start tomorrow at six.

Type

Diary

Citation