STUDY OF TROPICAL DISEASES

Dr. Richard Pearson Strong of the Health Department of the United States Insular Burean, has been appointed Professor of Tropical Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Strong will organize and have charge of a new department which will give systematic instruction in the study and treatment of tropical discases. The new department starts with a five-year guarantee of sufficient funds and it is hoped that later an endowment will be raised to make the work permanent.

Dr. Strong's Wide Experience.

After taking the degree of Ph.D. at Yale in 1903 and of M.D. at Johns Hopkins in 1897, Dr. Strong went to the Philippines in 1898 as First Lieutenant and Assistant Surgeon in the United States Army. He studied tropical diseases and was made president of the Army board for investigations of them. Since 1901 he has been Directory of the Government Biological Laboratory at Manila, Where, in 1907, he was made Professor of Tropical Medicine in the College of Medicine and Surgery. In 1911 Dr. Strong went to China with Dr. Oscar Teague as delegate to the International Plague Conference called to investigate a serious outbreak of the pneumonic plague in Manchuria. In spite of overwhelming difficulties due to wretched hospitals, equipment, and the uniform fatality of the disease, Dr. Strong and his college were entirely successful in making some very valuable discoveries in regard to the plague and the way in which it is spread. Another dangerous tropical disease with which Dr. Strong has worked successfully is one which occurs among the natives of the Philippine Islands.

Excellent Opportunities for New Study.

The new department in the Medical School which will be under Dr. Strong's supervision, will offer instruction to graduates and students of the school besides carrying on active research in tropical diseases. There will be excellent opportunity to co-operate with other departments of the University where extensive information as to insects, snakes and other poisonous animals of the tropics is available. Besides this are the Bussey Institution where entomologists have made a special study of these insects; the various museums where other specialists are studying animals, reptiles and plants with a view to finding out the laws of heredity and transportation of diseases; and the first-class laboratories of the Medical School, where such eminent physicians as Doctors Theobald Smith, Earnest, Councilman, Tyzzer, Wolbach and Rosenau have been investigating the subject of pathology and preventive medicine.

Dr. Strong has already taken part in an expedition to Africa for the purpose of studying the sleeping sickness, and it is hoped that this new department may be able, through the aid of contributions, to send expeditions to other regions but little investigated, as has been done by the important schools of tropical medicine at Liverpool, London and Hamburg, to the great advantage of science and humanity.