George W. Hunter III

Last updated
George W. Hunter III
Occupation Parasitologist
Notable work
Hunter's Tropical Medicine (textbook)

George W. Hunter III was a parasitologist and educator with the US Army Sanitary Corps and Army Medical School. He is best known for his work with Schistosoma control and with the Tropical Medicine Course at the Army Medical School (now the course is known as the Walter Reed Tropical Medicine Course). The textbook he helped create for the Tropical Medicine Course now is the leading reference text for Tropical Medicine and the title bears his name.

Army Medical School

Founded by U.S. Army Brigadier General George Miller Sternberg, MD in 1893, the Army Medical School (AMS) was by some reckonings the world's first school of public health and preventive medicine. The AMS ultimately became the Army Medical Center (1923), then the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (1953).

<i>Schistosoma</i> genus of worms

Schistosoma is a genus of trematodes, commonly known as blood flukes. They are parasitic flatworms responsible for a highly significant group of infections in humans termed schistosomiasis, which is considered by the World Health Organization as the second-most socioeconomically devastating parasitic disease, with hundreds of millions infected worldwide.

Walter Reed Tropical Medicine Course

The Walter Reed Tropical Medicine Course at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) is one of the many Tropical Medicine Training Courses available in the US and worldwide. It is an intensive 5-day course and a 3-day short course, created to familiarize students with tropical diseases they may encounter overseas. The course is open to Physicians, Physician Assistants, Nurse Practitioners, ESO, 18D, or other medical personnel. The course is run by the military and designed for personnel of the US Military and several other US government agencies.

Contents

Work with the Tropical Medicine Course

George W. Hunter III, PhD, was commissioned as a captain in the Sanitary Corps in 1942 and joined the faculty of the Tropical and Military Medicine Course, which expanded from 23 to 200 students. The course prepared medical officers to combat the diseases to which soldiers were exposed in the Army's worldwide operations. [1]

Hunter suggested using the outline of the course as the basis for a textbook. It was published by the National Research Council in 1945 as the Manual of Tropical Medicine and became the standard reference in its field. Hunter's name was not listed first among the principal authors because the company believed that a physician's name would improve sales, but it was retitled Hunter's Tropical Medicine in later editions. With the printing of the sixth edition in 1984, Hunter, then a professor in the School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, was recognized as "the glue that has held this book together from the very first edition." [2]

University of California, San Diego public university in San Diego, California, United States

The University of California, San Diego is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, in the United States. The university occupies 2,141 acres (866 ha) near the coast of the Pacific Ocean, with the main campus resting on approximately 1,152 acres (466 ha). Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is the seventh-oldest of the 10 University of California campuses and offers over 200 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, enrolling approximately 30,000 undergraduate and 8,500 graduate students.

Work with Schistosomiasis and Applied Parasitology

Col. George W. Hunter III, MSC, gained international recognition for his work with schistosomiasis. United States forces occupying Japan required food handlers to be free of parasites, and Hunter fielded a mobile laboratory outfitted in railroad cars that tested nearly nineteen thousand Japanese over a four-month period in 1949. The researchers found that 93.2 percent of those tested were infected with some form of intestinal parasite. Demand always creates a supply, and the team also found that there was a black market for parasite-free stools.

Schistosomiasis Human disease caused by parasitic worms called schistosomes

Schistosomiasis, also known as snail fever and bilharzia, is a disease caused by parasitic flatworms called schistosomes. The urinary tract or the intestines may be infected. Symptoms include abdominal pain, diarrhea, bloody stool, or blood in the urine. Those who have been infected for a long time may experience liver damage, kidney failure, infertility, or bladder cancer. In children, it may cause poor growth and learning difficulty.

One of the parasitic diseases was schistosomiasis, a disabling and potentially fatal disease. Hunter concentrated his research effort on that endemic problem, and by 1951 his team had eliminated it in the Nagatoishi district of Kurume City, Japan, using a landmark program of molluscicides to control the snail host. Japan adopted Hunter's methods and by 1970 had virtually eliminated the disease. Hunter became a public figure in Japan, and in 1952 the townspeople of Kurume erected a bust of him as a permanent tribute to their "great benefactor." [3] [4]

Japan Constitutional monarchy in East Asia

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asian continent and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea in the south.

Legacy

Walter Reed Army Medical Center Hospital in D.C., United States

The Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC)—known as Walter Reed General Hospital (WRGH) until 1951—was the U.S. Army's flagship medical center from 1909 to 2011. Located on 113 acres (46 ha) in the District of Columbia, it served more than 150,000 active and retired personnel from all branches of the military. The center was named after Major Walter Reed (1851–1902), an Army physician who led the team that confirmed that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes rather than direct contact.

Thomas T Mackie was a research/public health physician in the United States Army during World War II. He was involved in the creation of the first tropical medicine course at the US Army Medical School in 1941. He was one of the three principal authors for the first edition of the Manual of Tropical Medicine.

Charles Brooke Worth was an American naturalist and virologist who worked as a professor at Swarthmore College, with the US Army during World War II, and then with the Rockefeller Foundation during the post-war period working on matters of public health and mosquito-borne diseases. He travelled around the world, including countries in Africa and Asia, and was the author of several books, including Manual of Tropical Medicine, A Naturalist in Trinidad, The Nature of Living Things, and Mosquito Safari: A Naturalist In Southern Africa, Of mosquitoes, moths, and mice.

See also

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Helminthiasis Macroparasitic disease in which a part of the body is infected with parasitic worms

Helminthiasis, also known as worm infection, is any macroparasitic disease of humans and other animals in which a part of the body is infected with parasitic worms, known as helminths. There are numerous species of these parasites, which are broadly classified into tapeworms, flukes, and roundworms. They often live in the gastrointestinal tract of their hosts, but they may also burrow into other organs, where they induce physiological damage.

Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine

The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) is a higher education institution and registered charity located in Liverpool, United Kingdom. Established in 1898, it was the first institution in the world dedicated to research and teaching in tropical medicine. The school has a research portfolio of over £220 million, assisted by funding from organisations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust and Department for International Development (DFID).

Thomas Huckle Weller American virologist

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<i>Schistosoma haematobium</i> species of worm

Schistosoma haematobium is species of digenetic trematode, belonging to a group (genus) of blood flukes (Schistosoma). It is found in Africa and the Middle East. It is the major agent of schistosomiasis, the most prevalent parasitic infection in humans. It is the only blood fluke that infects the urinary tract, causing urinary schistosomiasis, and is the leading cause of bladder cancer. The diseases are caused by the eggs.

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References

  1. ↑ Army Medical School: Simmons, "The Division of Preventive Medicine," p. 61. Hunter: Rpt, Col George W. Hunter, MSC, sub: Reminiscences, 1971, DASG-MS; Notes of telephone interv, Hunter with Lt Col Richard V. N. Ginn, 1 Feb 86, DASG-MS; Lt Col Lyman P. Frick, draft section, sub: Parasitology, 1958 MSC History Project, hereafter cited as Frick, Parasitology. Hunter had resigned a reserve infantry commission in 1933 when he could not obtain an appointment in the Sanitary Corps Reserve in spite of a Ph.D. in parasitology and microbiology.
  2. ↑ Book idea: Hunter, Ginn telephone interv 1 Feb 86. Tropical Medicine: Thomas T. Mackie, George W. Hunter III, and C. Brooke Worth, Manual of Tropical Medicine (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1945). Major Hunter, SnC, and Captains Mackie and Worth, MC, were all fellow instructors in the course. Another ten Sanitary Corps officers contributed to the book: Maj. Gordon E. Davis and Capts. Luther S. West and William N. Sullivan, Jr.: entomology; Maj. Kingston S. Wilcox and Capt. Russell W. H. Gillespie: bacterial diseases; Capt. Reginald D. Manwell: malaria; 1st Lt. Joel Warren: viruses; and Capts. Curtis Saunders, A.E.A. Hudson, and William G. Jahnes, Jr.: diagnostic methods. Quoted words: G. Thomas Strickland, in introduction to Hunter's Tropical Medicine, 6th ed. (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1984), p. xvii.
  3. ↑ Hunter's team: Speech, Yamashita Kuranosuke, Chief, Construction Committee for Hunter Statue, sub: Congratulatory Address, Kurume City Hall, 15 Jul 52 (translation), DASG-MS; George W. Hunter III et al., "Control of the Snail Host of Schistosomiasis in Japan with Sodium Pentachlorophenate (Santobrite)," American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 1 (September 1952): 831-47; "Fruitful Result of Cooperation," Mainichi Shimbun (Daily News), Japan, 9 August 1968 (translation), DASG-MS; Hunter et al., "Control of Schistosomiasis Japonica in the Nagatoishi Area of Kurume, Japan," American Journal of Tropical Medicine 31 (1982): 760-70; Hunter and Muneo Yokogawa, "Control of Schistosomiasis Japonica in Japan: A Review, 1950-1978," Japanese Journal of Parasitology 33 (August 1984): 341-51; Notes of telephone interv, Col George W. Hunter III, MSC, Ret., with Ginn, 1 Feb 86, DASG-MS. Hunter headed the Medical Zoology Section of the 406th Medical Laboratory in Tokyo from 1947 to 1951. Schistosomiasis: The team eliminated 99 percent of the snail population over a two-year period beginning in 1949.
  4. ↑ "History of the U.S. Army Medical Service Corps. Ch. 8: Korea". Office of Medical History, U.S. Army.
  5. ↑ STRICKLAND, G. Thomas, ed. - Hunter’s Tropical Medicine and emerging infectious diseases. 8.ed. Philadelphia, W.B. Saunders Company, 2000. 1192p. ilus. ( ISBN   0-7216-6223-4)
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