LSU vs. disease in Latin America

              Louisiana State University Medical School in New Orleans is engaged in a $3 million health program in Latin America.
The program, which includes three major projects, has nothing to do with the Alliance for Progress, which it antedates, although its philosophy parallels that of the alliance as far. as health is concerned. In each case, the projects are of mutual benefit to the United States and the Latin American countries involved.
Savs Pr. William W. Fryei **Many North American pro-lessors are teaching diseases in which they have no personal experience. We're going down where we can see some of these diseases in action. Malaria, for example, has been eliminated in the United States. But just three hours away in some sections of Honduras, 35 per cent of the people have the disease. We're looking for a cure."
Dr. Frye is professor of tropical medicine, dean of the school of medicine and vice-president of LSU.
"Our main success so far," he says, "has been with worms. Using a new drug, dithiazanine, which is given by mouth in tablet formf we have saved the lives of a large number of children infected with them."
Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Chile, Uruguay and Peru.
So far, 45 medical schools out of the 84 in the U.S. have sent students to Latin America in this program; 69 have sent professors. Currently, fellowship participants are studying: various parasitic, bacterial and viral infections that cause intestinal upsets; diseases of the tropics no longer found in the United States, such as malaria and yellow fever; various fungus infections; various diseases transmitted by insects in the tropics and subtropics—such as onchocerciasis, a disease caused by a tiny, fly-transmitted worm which can cause blindness when it reaches the eye; and many types of cancer, arterial diseases and nutritional disorders that are relatively rare in the U.S. but common in some Latin American countries.
At about the same time LSU started the new fellowship program, the University of Costa Rica (enrollment 4,000) began to consider founding a school of medicine. Previously most Costa Rican doctors had been trained in other countries of Latin America or in Spain. There were only some 600 physicians for the nation's 1,200,000 people, roughly half the ratio in the U.S.
Representatives of the Costa Rican university came to the UJBL in 1957 and 1058 to stuffy *h® physical plants at LSU Med and the medical schools of Tuiane University, the University of Mississippi and the University of Florida. Using as models whatever best suited his purpose in each, architect Jorge Padilla designed Costa Rica's Basic Medical Sciences Building.  Construction began in
1959 and was completed about two years thereafter.
Meanwhile, most of the potential professors for the faculty of medicine at the University of Costa Rica came to LSU Med and spent from six months to three years taking advance courses, doing research, studying teaching methods. Now the heads of all the Costa Rican university's basic medical science departments have received training at Louisiana State. The academic program is modeled on that of LSU Med.
The first class—12 students, including two girls—began sessions in March, 1961. By 1965, Dr. Mario Miranda-Gutierrez, dean of the faculty of medicine, expects to have 40 students per class, the full enrollment as presently planned.
When the medical school opened, professors from LSU Med went down to help teach class, supervise lab work and give some of the lectures.
"The language barrier has not been a problem," says Dr. George 0. Davis, associate professor of physiology lit LSU Med, who recently returned from £0 months as chief of party at the medical school in San Jose. "About hail of the 30 or so people from LSU who have gone down there have lectured in Spanish," he says. "Hie others* lectures were given simultaneous translations—just as is done at the United Nations Assembly.
Dr. Norman S. Gilbert, associate professor of medicine at LSU Med, replaced Dr. Davis as chief of party and will be at the University of Costa Rica for two years.
The U.S. State Department is administrator of the funds for the medical school. A substantial amount of the money comes from Costa Rica itself. (It footed the entire bill for construction of the medical school.) The State Department has allocated to LSU Med for its Costa Rican work $223,-000 from August, 1959, through February, 1964. The Louisiana State people expect that about the same amount will be spent from March, 1964, through September, 1966.
JH rom the standpoint of money, the biggest of the three projects is the LSU-Middle American Center for Medical Research and Training which came into being June 1, 1961. The National Institutes of Health have allocated about $2 million for the first five years, with an unofficial commitment for an indefinite period thereafter.
Dr. Pena C. is chief resident consultant of the center, situated in San Jose. Between 30 and 40 men are working at the center constantly, the majority of the professional people being from the U.S.
Dr. J. Clyde Swartzwelder, professor of medical parasi-tology and head of the department of tropical medicine at LSU Med, assists Dean Frye in the direction of the overall medical program. Says he;
"We are setting up a cooperating pair of labs, one at the med school at San Jose, the other at LSU Med in New Orleans. Their facilities and staff jointly investigate major health problems of the areas adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean."
(This center is one of five which have been set up in various spots of the world under NIH funding. Other med schools which have received similar NIH grants include the University of California, the University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University and Tuiane. Tulane's center is in Colombia.)
"For a start," says Dr. Swartzwelder, "we're investigating dysenteries, diarrheas, worms and cancer of the stomach and lungs.**
Hie center plans to investigate all the health problems of the Gulf-Caribbean area eventually, and to relate these studies to the cultural and genetic background of the populations.
For example: cancer of the stomach. At/a time in which it is decreasing in the U.S., this disease seems to be more prevalent in Costa Rica than any other spot in the Western Hemisphere.
Why? Is it due to some factor of the Costa Ricans' heredity, environment or culture?
This is one of the things the center plans to find out.