Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-08-19

7 ASHlNGION, II. u, aug Af'--iAC lC-
w cent death of a prominent official OF
the emergency fleet corporation of an
ailment known as San Joaquin valley disease
focused the attention of the country for an
instant upon that strange and fatal malady
OF all the ills that flesh is heir to-or Amer
lean flesh, at any rate-thiS one has the few
est legateeS; for no case of it in the fatal
form has ever been known to develop out
side that small section of California called the
San Joaquin valley. The disease, however,
while rare, is not mysterious. 1t is caused
by a germ which medical science has isolated
and studied. The strange thing is that though
the disease is contagious its spread is con-
fined to relatively thinly populated section
of California.
1t is not quite fair to California to insist
that the disease is peculiar to that fair region.
San Joaquin valley disease exists in two
forms, one is the fatal kind, in which the
germ attacks the victims lungs, the symptoms
of the illness being so nearly like those of
tuberculosis that physicians have sometimes
confused the two. The other is a milder
type, in which the germ attacks the victims
skin. A number of cases of this latter type
have been observed in districts in the vicinity
of Chicago. Attacks of this type are not likely
to end fatally.
1t also seems reasonable to suppose that
America has no monopoly of this afflction and
that it may exist and be prevalent in other
parts of the world. In countries in which the
medical vigil is less expert and thorough than
in our own, it is quite possible that San
Joaquin valley disease, as we call it here,
is annually claiming its victims. At any rate,
one undeniable case of it has been reported
in South America. 1t is entirely within pos
Sbility that the disease exists there, but is
identified as the better-known tuberculosis.
That disease may be widespread in popu-
lation and still escape detection was demon
Strated in our own American experience with
pellagra. Only few years ago this disease
was supposed by scientists to be exceedingly
rare in the United States. But as investigation
proceeded, the surprising fact developed that
in reality it was one of the commonest of the
diseases in the United States. thousands and
thousands of Americans, particularly at certain
seasons of the year, suffering from it, and
many being slain by it.
Twenty Years of Study
The doctors of the Public Health Service in
Washington have been studying San Joaquin
valley disease for twenty years. In that
time they have had the germ under the
microscope, have grown it in cultures outside
the human body, have transplanted the infec-
ton to rabbits and guinea pigs, and have
given to it literature of considerable bulk.
They have done everything but discover
specific cure for the disease. The cure, like
thdL VI tuDeICuIOSlS, the germ Oh WHICH mas
also been isolated, has eluded them. The
victim of San Joaquin valley disease usually
dies after suffering for several years. few
have vitality enough to throw it off. Prac-
tically only adults seem to be subject to it.
The organism which causes the disease was
not difficult to discover, for it is a vegetable
form rather higher in the scale of life than
bacteria and being close to yeast spores in
characteristics. These organisms are known as
blaStomyoes. Sunlight, fresh air, and invigor-
ating food to which the tuberculosis germ
will often yield, do not seem to have much
effect upon the blastomyceS. Whence these
organisms come to affct man nobody knows,
but, because the disease they cause is so sharp
ly localized, the public health surgeons suS-
pect that some species of animal living in
the San Joaquin valley is serving as reser-
vor of the contagion.
The Public Health Service has so many more
formidable enemies to human life to fight that
it is devoting no undue amount of attention
to San Joaquin valley disease. In the twenty
years since the disease has been recognized,
fewer ethan fifty cases have occurred in Cali
forna. Consequently the people of the San
Joaquin valley, despite the malady, continue
to be good life insurance risks and can go
to bed of nights without worrying lest they
be invaded by the infection which some branch
of the native fauna is evidently carrying
around.
Another Queer Disease
Of much more concern to the Public Health
Service lately is another disease now preva-
lent in the United States but little known to
the public. This ailment is known as conor-
chiaSis or liver fluke disease. Although there
are hundreds and even thousands of cases of
it now existing in this country, and the stage
is apparently all set for it, not a single case