Let us spray? Papers of Leonard Jan Bruce-Chwatt now available

The distinguished malariologist Leonard Jan Bruce-Chwatt (1907-1989) summed up the feelings of many of his contemporaries when, in 1986, he wrote:

“We all know the main chapters of the sad saga of global malaria eradication and felt, often personally, the rise and fall of our hopes during the past 30 years.” [1]

Those involved in today’s major malaria initiatives seem likewise haunted by the fortunes of the large-scale malaria control programmes of the second half of the twentieth century. An overall lack of “progress” is analysed, attempts are made to draw “lessons” from the past, and bold ambitions for future eradication are greeted with a certain degree of caution.

For an insight into global anti-malaria endeavours from the advent of effective insecticides in the 1940s through the large-scale eradication campaigns of the 1950s and 1960s, and the disillusionment of the 1970s and 1980s, one could do worse than begin with an examination of the papers of Bruce-Chwatt himself, now available for consultation in the Wellcome Library (ref WTI/LBC).

From 1949 to 1958 Bruce-Chwatt headed up the Federal Malaria Service of Nigeria, where he oversaw an early control project in Sokoto, in the north-west of the country. Reports and unpublished papers, maps, charts and photographs relating to this project are all contained within the collection.

In 1958 he moved to Geneva, then the epicentre of international malaria matters, and became Chief of Research and Technical Intelligence in the Malaria Eradication Division of the World Health Organisation. From this position, as a member of the WHO Expert Panel on Malaria (on which he served continuously from 1951 onwards), and later as a consultant, he was witness to the entire span of the Global Malaria Eradication Program launched by the WHO in 1955 and abandoned in 1969. By 1962 he had been convinced that, “It is now plain that nobody can perform the miracle of malaria eradication in Africa simply by saying ‘Let us spray!’”. [2]

Bruce-Chwatt remained an expert commentator on all aspects of the disease, and on malaria policy, right up to his death in 1989. His own published and unpublished writings and the various papers by others which are also included in the collection cover many different aspects of the issue including epidemiology, parasitology, insecticides, antimalarial drugs and drug resistance.

Despite the apparent pessimism of his comments as quoted above, Bruce-Chwatt did, in fact, remain guardedly optimistic about the future, placing his faith in a combination of scientific progress and the efforts of international agencies. We can only wonder whether he would have felt this optimism justified by today’s global programmes such as Roll Back Malaria, the Malaria Vaccine Initiative and the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria, the Wellcome Trust’s continued heavy investment in malaria research, the sequencing of the malaria parasite genome and rising hopes for an effective vaccine.

[1] L. J. Bruce-Chwatt, ‘Malaria control at the cross-roads! Where do we go from here?’, Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, 1988, p.1.

[2] L. J. Bruce-Chwatt, ‘Malaria eradication in Africa’, New Scientist, 28 June 1962, p.703.

Images:
- A spraying team at work as part of a malaria control programme in Sokoto, Northern Nigeria. Note from left to right the stages of preparing insecticidal supsension before spraying operations: the drum with the DDT powder, the pouring of the prepared suspension into the container through the sieve, and the compression sprayer. Mid 20th century (Wellcome Images, W0004205) 
- Jan Leonard Bruce-Chwatt (Wellcome Library no. 14530i)

Author: Jenny Haynes

Travel Writing Sources Guide

Given the restrictions on air travel of late, it is perhaps timely to flag up a new guide to unpublished Travel Writing in the Wellcome Library’s collections.

Arranged by geographic region, the guide gives an overview of relevant manuscript material in our collections. It’s one of a series of thematic sources guides designed to assist users of our archives and manuscript collections to identify material of particular relevance to their research.

The Travel Writing sources guide covers records of travel dating from the 18th–20th centuries, generally in diary or journal form which contain descriptions of journeys, places and experiences.

These records were kept by all manner of practitioners of medicine and the travels described are equally wide ranging, including journeys of exploration, touring holidays and the experiences of naval surgeons. Most corners of the globe are covered: from the Arctic Circle to Antarctica and from the East to West Indies.

As well illustrating the breadth of our collections, the sources guide acts as a first step in carrying out research into our archives. For more detailed subject searching, you can run keyword or subject searches in the Archives and Manuscripts on–line catalogue, from which material can be ordered for consultation in the Rare Materials Room.

And if your horizons stretch further than our travel writing guide, a full list of our other archives and manuscripts sources guides is available from the Wellcome Library website.

Image above is an illustration of Ascension Island, from the travel journals of Naval surgeon Fleetwood Buckle (MSS.1395-1404).

Maxim and Wellcome: Medicine and Machine Guns

A scene from late-Victorian London society is captured here, in this illustration from the Wellcome Library: we’re at a Thanksgiving Day banquet in 1896. The great and the good of the American expatriate community are on show and presiding is Henry Wellcome – the then President of the American Society.

This one image perhaps captures Wellcome the socialite: since coming to London in 1880 to co-found the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome & Co, he had steadily made a name for himself on the London social scene. Wellcome formed relationships and connections with a number of other Americans during this period – two of them, the explorers Henry Stanley and Mounteney Jephson are pictured here – but the one we want to focus on is Anglo-American industrialist, Hiram S Maxim (clear identifiable by his beard and shock of white hair), who was born on this day 170 years ago.

Like Wellcome, Maxim was born in the United States and moved England to further his career. Both men became members of the British establishment, and received knighthoods and both owned large-scale factories which mass-produced the products most commonly associated with them. Indeed, these factories were geographically close together – Maxim’s in Crayford, Wellcome’s in Dartford. But whereas the Dartford factory of Burroughs Wellcome & Co, produced precise, compressed drugs, amongst the armaments coming off the production line of Vickers Son & Maxim at Crayford was the first self-powered machine gun, which had been patented by Maxim in 1883.

And the connections between Maxim and Wellcome now start to widen: from the banquet above to neighbouring factories on the edge of London, we move to Africa. In 1886, a British-led expedition was launched to relieve the Governor of the state of Equatoria from advancing Mahdist forces. The so-called Emin Pasha Relief effort – under the leadership of our other banquet guest Henry Morton Stanley – saw the first use of a prototype of a Maxim gun. Also carried on the relief effort was a Burroughs Wellcome & Co ‘Tabloid’ medicine chest – the first time one of Wellcome’s branded medicine chests was used by an explorer.

And indeed, Henry Wellcome’s later expenditure in Africa is indirectly linked to Maxim. Wellcome first visited Africa in 1901, travelling to the Sudan after Lord Kitchener had recaptured Khartoum. Seeing the chaos and disease brought to the city by war, Wellcome believed scientific research could be directed to improve the hygiene and wellbeing of the population. He offered the Government in Sudan fully equipped research laboratories to be housed in the Gordon Memorial College in Khartoum. The Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratories - as the laboratories were named - opened in 1902.

That Kitchener had captured Khartoum – and that Wellcome was able to visit – follows on from the British Army’s success in their battles against Mahdist forces, particularly the Battle of Omdurman in 1898. And the reason for the British Army’s astonishing success? Perhaps psychologically as much physically, but it’s clear that the rapid fire of the Maxim Gun made a fearsome and frightening difference between the two forces.

One last note: Maxim was an inveterate inventor – light bulbs, mouse traps and flying machines all were produced from his designs - but also a chronic sufferer of bronchitis. And in the years before his death, he designed and manufactured a steam inhaler. Maxim, indeed, is alleged to have commented on his inhaler: "From the foregoing it will be seen that it is a very creditable thing to invent a killing machine, and nothing less than a disgrace to invent an apparatus to prevent human suffering".

One of Maxim’s inhalers - shown here - was obtained by Henry Wellcome and is now on display in the Medicine Man Gallery of Wellcome Collection: completing our circle of Maxim and Wellcome’s connections.