TWO HARVARD DOCTORS DESCRIBE DISCOVERIES IN MEDICAL SCIENCE

Dr. R. P. Strong, Professor of Tropical Medicine at the Medical School, told members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science recently that he has discovered the cure for one form of a disease 4000 years old, referred to in the Bible as the "plague of fiery serpents".

Dr. Strong described the way to wipe out one branch of the disease, which is caused by threadlike worms that have preyed on man since before the days of the pyramids. The worms, which are known by scientists as the "family filariidae' and look like long cotton threads, live in warm climates from Charleston to the Argentine, and from Italy to Australia, and attack men, animals, birds, fish, and snakes. In man they cause the terrible swellings of limbs and other parts of the body called elephantiasis, sometimes blindness, tumors and skin eruptions. Infections received through worm attacks may cause death. One species, in Guatemala, causes tumors on the head and affects from half to two-thirds of the population of some villages.

The worms are carried from person to person by small coffee flies. The tumors can be removed by a simple, safe operation that costs only $2 per patient. This destroys the worms, preventing the flies from spreading them to others. If the tumors could be removed as fast as they appear, Dr. Strong believes this form of the disease could be eradicated.