Current interest in world j travel makes communicable' diseases in any part of the world a potential hazard to the entire world, Dr. William W. Frye, dean and vice-president of Louisiana State university medical school said here today. Dr. Frye, co-ordinator of the fourth conference on research needs in tropical medicine which opened this morning at the school, said if it would ever become necessary for U. S. armed forces to go into tropical areas, it would be essential that public health officers and general practitioners know the causes and cures for tropical diseases.
He said parasitic disease are | important to economic rehabili-Itation in underdeveloped areas. "These diseases are chronic and are seldom the immediate cause of death, but they are of peculiar economic importance," said Dr. Frye. Staggering Cost
"A dead man requires no | food . . . but a chronically ill individual does. He becomes a financial burden on the community. When you multiply one such case by hundreds of thousands, you arrive at a staggering cost."
Dr. Nevin S. Scrimshaw, .of! the Institute of Nutrition Of Central America and Panama, Guatemala, and regional advisor on nutrition for the Pan American Health Organization with headquarters in Washings ton, said in most tropical and' sub-tropical climates, nutrition-i al disease have a morbidity rate in the millions, and a mortality rate Mn the thousands ■-' In underdeveloped areas of South America, India, China and Africa, Dr. Scrimshaw said, infants and young children actually die of protein deficiencies.
They actually shrivel up, Dr. Scrimshaw, said, and die of starvation.
He cited anemia, hook-worm, beriberi, goiter, rickets, pellagra, oedema and ariboflavinosis as other plagues of the young in underdeveloped areas.
One nutritional disease, xer-ophthalmia; causes "dry eyes" and a similar condition, kerat-omalacis, causes thousands of persons to go blind.
Beriberi, Dr. Scrimshaw said, is actually on the increase in the Far East, due to the introduction of power mills for grain which do such a-good job of grinding the meal that much of the nutritional value is lost.
Simple enrichment of rice, he said, would solve some of these nutritional problems, just as iodized salt would prevent endemic goiters.
/The problem is mainly one of education," he said.
The conference will continue through tomorrow.
