Filariasis

Mosquitoes Not the Only Agency

From Our Tahiti Correspondent AUTHORITIES in tropical diseases agree that Filariasis is conveyed from one human being to another through the agency of the mosquito.

Long observation of this disease in these islands has convinced this writer that the mosquito is not the only agent of transmission. The natives of Tahiti have always maintained that certain parcels of land are breeding grounds of the disease and that anyone inhabiting these areas will contract the malady.

Thirty years ago a French savant, liv ing in the Islands, investigated the history of the several parcels, and told this writer that the native assertion was well founded. There was every evidence that the ground had become infected with filaria which then entered the human body after the manner of the hook-worm.

This extract from Doctor Victor Reiser’s “An American Doctor’s Odyssey”: “. . . it was later discovered that the filaria is a white thread-like worm which, after be ing deposited by the mosquito on the skin, bores its way into the lymphatics and blocks them”, lends credibility to the theory.

We once saw a very convincing example of this method of infection. A tract of land of very evil reputation was about to pass into the possession of a man of our acquaintance. We resolved to warn him.

Now this individual was one of those persons who believed that wisdom had established her throne in his intellect and, therefore, any questioning of his pontifical pronouncements assumed the iniquity of lese-majesty.

Nevertheless, we girded our loins and told him in detail how for generations no native would live on that piece of land because history showed that every tenant had contracted elephantiasis. The neighbouring lands were free of infection and there was no filariasis thereabout.

Our acquaintance scoffed at our warn ing and moved in.

On schedule time, according to native reckoning, he developed full blown filariasis and the last we heard of him

he was living in a snow igloo in some Arctic wilderness of the Northern Hemis phere, trying to freeze the disease out of his lymphatic system.

Another avenue of transmission is, un doubtedly, infected water. Certain islands and districts which, years ago (when their water supply was taken from brooks and rivers) were notorious as breeding places of filariasis and its resulting elephan tiasis, have been practically cleared of the malady since the installation of a water supply from pure mountain springs.

Mr. David C. C. Trench, BA, Cadet in the District Administration branch of the BSI Service, was transferred to the Tongan Group in February.

Mr. G. W. Cockburn retired recently from the Fiji Government Printing Office.