A. Yale Massey | |
---|---|
Born | [1] | August 12, 1871
Died | August 22, 1922 51) [3] Irebu, Coquilhatville, Belgian Congo [3] | (aged
Citizenship | Canadian |
Education | University of Toronto; University College Hospital, London |
Scientific career | |
Institutions | Canada Congregational Foreign Missionary Society, Belgian Congo Medical Service |
A. Yale Massey (August 12, 1871 – August 22, 1922), B.A., M.D., was a Canadian physician, missionary, and medical researcher in Portuguese Angola and the Belgian Congo. Massey mapped the occurrence of African sleeping sickness (trypanosomiasis) in the Belgian Congo, showing that the disease was spreading along the banks of rivers. He was elected a fellow of the newly formed Society of Tropical Medicine in London in 1907. [5] He received the Chevalier de l'Ordre Royal du Lion from the King of the Belgians. [3] [1]
Alfred Yale Massey was born in Wallbridge, Hastings County, Ontario, Canada [3] on August 12, 1871, to Levi Massey (April 13, 1827 – January 1, 1912) and Ann Eliza McClatchie (October 1, 1838 – October 28, 1919). [6] [7] He grew up in Belleville, Ontario. [8]
In 1876, Mrs. Levi Massey was the founding president of the Woman's Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada, in Belleville, Ontario. [9]
Alfred Yale Massey graduated with his B.A. from Victoria College in 1893 and taught for a year at Wiarton. [10] He went on to earn his M.D., C.M. in 1898 from Trinity Medical College. Both later became part of the University of Toronto in Toronto, Canada. [11] [3]
Massey spent a year working with the Grenfell Mission in Labrador as part of The Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen. [10]
In 1899, Alfred Yale Massey joined the foreign mission of the Canada Congregational Foreign Missionary Society (later part of the United Church of Canada). [12] : 355, 360 Massey left Montreal, Canada on July 26, 1899, and arrived at the port of Benguella in Portuguese Angola on September 17, 1899. [2] On October 25, 1899, Massey arrived at the mission station in Chisamba to begin work as a missionary doctor. [13] [14] Massey was described as a "beloved physician" and credited with building the first hospital in Bié Province. [15]
It was a period of political turmoil, danger and unrest in Portuguese Angola. The Portuguese government permitted "contract labour" - which Massey described as "a legal term - really slaves". He sent a set of slave shackles home to Canada, that had been left behind by a dealer's caravan. [12] : 355, 360
The marriage of Dr. Alfred Yale Massey and Miss Ella Margaret Arnoldi occurred on either December 7, 1902 [11] or December 9, 1902, [16] [2] at Benguella, West Africa. They were, according to The Missionary Herald of March 1903, "both of the West Central African Mission." [16] : 162 Born in Walton, Lean, England on April 27, 1879, Arnoldi was a registered nurse. She is listed as embarking from Montreal on June 21, 1902, and arriving at Benguela on October 10, 1902, two months before their wedding. [2] [14]
In the Annual Report of 1903-1904, it was reported that the couple had returned to North America "on account of Mrs. Massey's health". [14] : 25 They arrived in Montreal on May 16, 1904. [2] They were released from the mission as of September 5, 1905. [2]
Massey worked as a company doctor for the Tanganyika Concessions Company and Union Minière du Haut-Katanga in the Katanga Province. [17] In 1905, Massey reported the presence of sleeping sickness among Baluba porters who had been recruited to work from the Bukama Territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. [18] Sleeping sickness was a devastating fatal disease that would not be treated successfully until 1920, when Louise Pearce tested arsenic-based drugs. [19]
In 1906 and 1907, Yale Massey mapped the occurrence of African sleeping sickness (trypanosomiasis) and the distribution of the riverine tsetse fly Glossina palpalis and savannah tsetse fly Glossina morsitans in the Belgian Congo, Africa. His maps showed that the disease was spreading along the banks of rivers. [20] He reported the new occurrence of the disease in the Upper Congo in The Lancet . [21]
As of 1908 Massey was reported to be practicing medicine of the ear, eye, nose and throat in St. John's, Newfoundland. [22] Subsequently, Massey studied at University College Hospital in London, receiving his Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery of the Society of Apothecaries (L.M.S.S.A.Lond.) in 1913. [3]
Massey enlisted during World War I and served with the rank of Major in the Belgian Congo Medical Service of the Belgian Army. He was stationed at Coquihatville Hospital in the Belgian Congo. [1]
Eventually Massey became a Chief Medical Officer, a position he held until his death. [10] In July 1921, the Vice-Governor General complained that Massey was not following the accepted practice of segregating his patients: he was seeing ambulatory African patients at the Hopital de la Rive where Europeans were treated, rather than at a crumbling hospital designated for Africans. [23]
Throughout his career, Massey continued to study, treat and write about infectious and tropical diseases such as encephalitis, onyalai, and tuberculosis, becoming highly regarded. [10] [24] [25] [8] He was elected a fellow of the newly formed Society of Tropical Medicine in London in 1907. [5] Massey received the Chevalier de l'Ordre Royal du Lion from the King of Belgium. [3] [1]
Massey corresponded with Edwin Ray Lankester [26] and sent specimens of ticks to members of the London School of Tropical Medicine. [27] [28] At least one species has been named after him. [29]
Massey was also an amateur photographer, whose photographs appear in the autobiography of naturalist Cuthbert Christy. [30]
Massey died on August 22, 1922, in Irebu, Coquilhatville, Belgian Congo. [3]
African trypanosomiasis, also known as African sleeping sickness or simply sleeping sickness, is an insect-borne parasitic infection of humans and other animals. It is caused by the species Trypanosoma brucei. Humans are infected by two types, Trypanosoma brucei gambiense (TbG) and Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense (TbR). TbG causes over 92% of reported cases. Both are usually transmitted by the bite of an infected tsetse fly and are most common in rural areas.
Tsetse are large, biting flies that inhabit much of tropical Africa. Tsetse flies include all the species in the genus Glossina, which are placed in their own family, Glossinidae. The tsetse is an obligate parasite, which lives by feeding on the blood of vertebrate animals. Tsetse has been extensively studied because of their role in transmitting disease. They have a pronounced economic impact in sub-Saharan Africa as the biological vectors of trypanosomes, causing human and animal trypanosomiasis.
James Jude Orbinski, is a Canadian physician, humanitarian activist, author and leading scholar in global health. Orbinski was the 2016-17 Fulbright Visiting professor at the University of California, Irvine, and as of September 1, 2017, he is professor and inaugural director of the Dahdaleh Institute of Global Health Research at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was previously the CIGI Chair in Global Health Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and Wilfrid Laurier University (2012-2017), Chair of Global Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (2010-2012) and full professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto (2003-2012), where he was the founding Saul Rae Fellow at Massey College. Orbinski's current research interests focus on the health impacts of climate change, medical humanitarianism, intervention strategies around emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, and global health governance.
Trypanosomiasis or trypanosomosis is the name of several diseases in vertebrates caused by parasitic protozoan trypanosomes of the genus Trypanosoma. In humans this includes African trypanosomiasis and Chagas disease. A number of other diseases occur in other animals.
Trypanosoma brucei is a species of parasitic kinetoplastid belonging to the genus Trypanosoma that is present in sub-Saharan Africa. Unlike other protozoan parasites that normally infect blood and tissue cells, it is exclusively extracellular and inhabits the blood plasma and body fluids. It causes deadly vector-borne diseases: African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness in humans, and animal trypanosomiasis or nagana in cattle and horses. It is a species complex grouped into three subspecies: T. b. brucei, T. b. gambiense and T. b. rhodesiense. The first is a parasite of non-human mammals and causes nagana, while the latter two are zoonotic infecting both humans and animals and cause African trypanosomiasis.
Major-General Sir David Bruce was a Scottish pathologist and microbiologist who made some of the key contributions in tropical medicine. In 1887, he discovered a bacterium, now called Brucella, that caused what was known as Malta fever. In 1894, he discovered a protozoan parasite, named Trypanosoma brucei, as the causative pathogen of nagana.
Relapsing fever is a vector-borne disease caused by infection with certain bacteria in the genus Borrelia, which is transmitted through the bites of lice or soft-bodied ticks.
The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) is a collaborative, patients' needs-driven, non-profit drug research and development (R&D) organization that is developing new treatments for neglected diseases, notably leishmaniasis, sleeping sickness, Chagas disease, malaria, filarial diseases, mycetoma, paediatric HIV, cryptococcal meningitis, hepatitis C, and dengue. DNDi's malaria activities were transferred to Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) in 2015.
Wayne Marvin Meyers was an American physician, microbiologist, chemist, humanitarian, and medical missionary. He pioneered new medical techniques, discovered new infectious agents, and trained countless researchers and scientists. Meyers was particularly well known for his work with Hansen's disease (Leprosy), Buruli ulcer, and filarial diseases.
Fexinidazole is a medication used to treat African trypanosomiasis caused by Trypanosoma brucei gambiense. It is effective against both first and second stage disease. Also a potential new treatment for Chagas disease, a neglected tropical disease that affects millions of people worldwide. It is taken by mouth.
Émile Roubaud was a French biologist and entomologist known for his work on paludism, yellow fever and sleeping sickness.
Naval Medical Research Unit Five (NAMRU-5) was a research laboratory of the US Navy which was founded as a field facility of Naval Medical Research Unit 3 in Addis Ababa Ethiopia with a collecting station in Gambella on December 30, 1965 under an agreement between the US and Ethiopian governments. In 1974 NAMRU-5 was established as its own command and was housed in the Ethiopian Health and Nutrition Research Institute. The mission of NAMRU-5 was to conduct research and development on infectious diseases of military importance in sub-Sahara Africa. Gambella became the focus of a major malaria control effort and studies on malaria immunology. Applied research focused on the general areas of insect repellents, insecticide resistance, insect attractants and louse control.
Frederick Stanley Arnot was a British missionary who did much to establish Christian missions in what are now Angola, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The Congo-Balolo Mission (CBM) was a British Baptist missionary society that was active in the Belgian Congo, the present day Democratic Republic of the Congo, from 1889 to 1915. It was the predecessor of the Regions Beyond Missionary Union (RBMU), established in 1900, which today is called World Team.
Cuthbert Christy was an English medical doctor and zoologist who undertook extensive explorations of Central Africa during the first part of the 20th century. He was known for his work on sleeping sickness, and for the Christy Report on slavery in Liberia in the 1920s.
Arthur Lewis Piper was a medical missionary in the Belgian Congo, supported by the Detroit Epworth League. He worked for the Mission Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the most remote mission station near Kapanga in the Belgian Congo. Piper helped the Lunda tribe battle malaria, sleeping sickness, and leprosy, among many other diseases.
Clinton Caldwell Boone was an African-American Baptist minister, physician, dentist, and medical missionary who served in the Congo Free State and Liberia. The son of Rev. Lemuel Washington Boone and Charlotte (Chavis) Boone of Hertford County, North Carolina, he played an important role in Africa as a missionary for the Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention and the American Baptist Missionary Union, now American Baptist International Ministries.
Clement Clapton Chesterman OBE was an English writer, humanitarian and physician. He was a medical missionary for the Baptist Missionary Society that served in the Belgian Congo, more specifically Yakusu. He was responsible for the establishment of a hospital, community-based dispensaries and training centres of medical auxiliaries. Chesterman's network of health dispensaries employed preventive medicine using the new drug tryparsamide to combat the prevalent issue of sleeping sickness in the area. His implementation of mass chemotherapy was extremely successful in eliminating the disease. Such success led to his methods being widely adopted in Africa, making Chesterman a prominent contributor to the field of tropical medicine. In 1974 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth.
Victor Kande Betu Kumeso is a Congolese physician who is an expert in African trypanosomiasis. He works at the Programme National de Lutte contre la Trypanosomiase Humaine Africaine at the University of Kinshasa.
The Sleeping Sickness Commission was a medical project established by the British Royal Society to investigate the outbreak of African sleeping sickness or African trypanosomiasis in Africa at the turn of the 20th century. The outbreak of the disease started in 1900 in Uganda, which was at the time a protectorate of the British Empire. The initial team in 1902 consisted of Aldo Castellani and George Carmichael Low, both from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Cuthbert Christy, a medical officer on duty in Bombay, India. From 1903, David Bruce of the Royal Army Medical Corps and David Nunes Nabarro of the University College Hospital took over the leadership. The commission established that species of blood protozoan called Trypanosoma brucei, named after Bruce, was the causative parasite of sleeping sickness.