Wayne M Meyers
Encyclopedia
Wayne M. Meyers, MD, PhD is an American physician
, microbiologist
, chemist
, humanitarian, and medical missionary
. He pioneered new medical techniques, discovered new infectious agents, unraveled the pathogenesis of many scourges of mankind, and trained countless researchers and scientist. Meyers is a humble but brilliant man who has dedicated his life to improving the health and wellbeing of human beings from all walks of life and from all corners of the globe. He served many years as a medical missionary in Africa and continues to travel to exotic places to help end human suffering from scourges that the World Health Organization
(WHO
) considers the neglected tropical diseases. He is particularly well known for his work with Hansen’s disease (Leprosy
), Buruli ulcer
, and filarial diseases.
. Most of his ancestors were farmers. His father was a farmer and a carpenter, and worked as a carpenter on steamboats going up and down the Mississippi from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. His mother was born on the farm that she lived on all her life. Wayne attended the local elementary one-room school and later went to a consolidated high school in Saxton, Pennsylvania. In 1941 he started his studies at Juniata College
, in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, where he majored in chemistry.
His studies were interrupted by World War II
. He was drafted in 1944, when he was more than three years through college, and served in a signal company in an infantry division, in the South Pacific. He spent most of his service time in the Philippines serving mainly as a cryptographer in the 43rd Infantry Division. At the end of World War II, he was in Luzon, and went to Japan in the Army of Occupation.
After the war, he was able to return to Juniata College and obtain his chemistry degree. Then he went to work with U.S. Steel as a research chemist in Pittsburgh, in physical chemistry in the metallurgical area. He wanted, however, to do humanitarian work, and having a rather strong religious background he decided that perhaps missionary work would be the best way to fulfill this. So, he went to seminary in Chicago. During that time, he realized that medicine was the field in which he could best serve. To accomplish this he returned for a year to Juniata College and completed his biology studies for medical school and thereafter obtained a scholarship at the University of Wisconsin, where he completed his degree in medical microbiology. He obtained his MS in 1953, and his PhD in 1955. Following that, he went to medical school at Baylor College of Medicine
, in Houston. To support his family, he took an instructorship in microbiology and did research in the microbiology department while attending medical school.
Meyers graduated medical school in 1959, and did his internship in Pennsylvania. Then, with missionary medicine in mind, he worked in a hospital in Michigan, doing primarily surgery. He recognized that anyone planning to do medical work overseas must have some expertise in surgery. He finished his surgical experience in the US around October 1961, and went to Africa, under the auspices of the American Leprosy Missions.
While in college, Wayne met and soon married his wife Esther Kleinschmidt (a descendant of Franz Heinrich Kleinschmidt
). His wife's parents had gone to Africa in 1923, and she had grown up in the Belgian Congo
. Her grandfather had moved to what is now Namibia
in the early 19th century and is buried in Namibia. Esther's father died in the Congo 1964 and is buried in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Wayne and Esther have four children: Amy, George, Daniel, and Sara.
near the Tanzania
border. Burundi at that time was a country in turmoil, because the Tutsi
and the Hutu
were at war with each other. There was rebellion. In fact, the prime minister had been assassinated no more than two days before Meyers' arrival in the capital city of Usumbura. Burundi was a protectorate
under the Belgian government following the First World War, and was still under Belgian rule when Meyers and his family arrived for work. There had also been three successive crop failures, and Burundi was dealing with a famine. Meyers did as much famine relief work as he did medicine. There were 600 patients in the leprosarium, and his hospital was the only one within about 50 kilometers. Thus, persons with all kinds of medical problems went to the little hospital. Leprosy was a major problem in Burundi. Estimates were then 5-10,000 leprosy patients among 3-4 million inhabitants.
Medications were limited, but sulfones were available, and he was able to provide treatment for a great many people, and care for the physical disabilities of most of the leprosy
patients.
The following year, 1962, he and his family moved to what was then Zaire
(the Democratic Republic of the Congo
), to work in Kivu
in extreme eastern part of the country, near the base of the Ruwenzori Mountains (the Mountains of the Moon), which included a beautiful snowcapped mountain even though this is an area very near the Equator. There was a tremendous opportunity for work among leprosy patients there. In Kivu, Dr. Meyers was in charge of a leprosarium with between 2,000 and 3,000 patients. At that time, leprosy patients were nearly all treated as in-patients.
Unfortunately, this was a dangerous time to be in the DRC; the land was in the early stages of the Congo Crisis
. Joseph Mobutu had seized power in a military coup and soon arrested, tortured, and eventually had the elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba
killed. Soon after Dr. Meyers and his family arrived a rebellion swept through their area. It began south, around Albertville
, and swept north, eventually to involve nearly half the country, on a line diagonally drawn between the Ubangi and the Shaba
area. The Leprosarium was right along the Uganda border. Because of health reasons for one of their daughters, Wayne and his wife, Esther left the little jungle hospital just a couple of months before the rebels arrived and were not captured, however, all of their belongings and personal effects were, of course, lost. But they felt that was a small thing compared to what happened to so many others including Esther's mother who remained and was captured by the rebels. Esther's mother was saved by some very kind local merchants who included her in a list of their wives and paid a large ransom for the whole group of women to cross the border into Sudan, where they were captured again by Sudanese rebels—but all eventually made their way to freedom. They had hoped to return, but with the rebellion, it was impossible to enter at that time. So the American Leprosy Missions moved the family to the Bas-Congo (Lower Congo), about halfway between Matadi
and Kinshasa
.
The hospital in the Bas-Congo, was much larger, about a 450-bed hospital, and they had many services and more physicians. So there was an opportunity to concentrate on leprosy. The medical missionaries developed a leprosy program that involved some 20 outlying centers. All leprosy patients were eventually discharged from the leprosarium, and seen and treated in these outlying centers, which Dr Meyers visited regularly by Land Rover or by airplane. Dr. Meyers was also responsible for the dermatology at the hospital, and also for the laboratory and pathology. In addition to Leprosy, Dr Meyers encounterd many other diseases including some which would later become part of his great life work, Buruli Ulcer
and Streptocerciasis.
Dr. Meyers and his family lived in the Bas-Congo
from 1965 until 1973. Though the HIV
/AIDS
epidemic
was unknown to the world at that time, with current knowledge it appears that HIV/AIDS was already present in the area. Meyers travelled extensively through the African region going to different mission stations, universities and other teaching centers in order to develop the Leprosy service in the country. During these visits, especially those in the Stanleyville (Kisangani
) area where AIDS may have arisen, Dr. Meyers and his colleagues saw patients whose symptoms fit the definition of AIDS and may well have been victims of that disease. It was established that some sera taken by the Belgians as early as 1959 were positive for HIV. Specifically, Dr. David Ho and colleagues from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York told a conference that using that sera from 1959 they identified a case of HIV infection to a man living in what was then the Belgian Congo. This and other data demonstrate that HIV/AIDS existed in the Bas-Congo during the years that Dr. Meyers served in the region.
In 1973 Meyers and his family moved to Hawaii. He worked at the University of Hawaii as a professor of pathology for two years and became involved with the leprosy research on Molokai
and also worked with leprosy patients, both on Oahu
, at the Hale Mohalu Center in Pearl City, and on Molokai. While he was in Hawaii he was also able to spend some time organizing and analyzing the reports, documents, and tissue samples he had collected on leprosy patients from Africa and he used that knowledge to help his patients in Hawaii.
on a project which Dr. Chapman H Binford (Chair of the Infectious Disease Department) and Dr. Robert E. Stowell (Scientific Director of the AFIP) had arranged., They had made a trip to Africa a year or so previously and had arranged collaborative projects with two academic institutions in Africa: one at Onderstepoort
, in Gauteng
, South Africa, near Pretoria
; and the other one in Kampala
, Uganda
at Makerere University
. Meyers visited Dr. Connor when he was in Burundi in 1962, and from that time on collaborated with the AFIP. Meyers worked through Dr. Binford, sending specimens and studying special patients. When Dr. Connor returned to the AFIP, their collaboration increased.
Meyers and his colleagues obtained a significant grant from the Research and Development Command of the U.S. Army, and conducted research in sleeping sickness, trypanosomiasis, and Buruli ulcer during about five of his eight years at this post in the Lower Congo. He worked in the Bas-Congo from 1965 until 1973.
At the time of independence, in 1960, the Belgians had trypanosomiasis
pretty well under control in what had been the Belgian Congo. When Meyers began working in the Bas-Congo in 1965, it was uncommon to see a patient with active trypanosomiasis. By the time he left there in 1973, he and other physicians were seeing hundreds of cases annually of African-type sleeping sickness caused by trypanosomes in the hospital. They would come in spontaneously; there was no survey work being done. Thus, this was very important research.
Meyers joined the staff at the AFIP in 1975 after returning from Africa and Hawaii. At the institute he followed the AFIP mission of providing Education, Consultation, and Research. Dr. Meyers helped Dr. Binford with the AFIP's Registry of Leprosy, which has material from between 30,000 to 40,000 cases of leprosy. This is probably largest collection of pathologic materials from leprosy patients anywhere in the world. There was a lot of material on other mycobacterial diseases, such as Buruli ulcer
, (Mycobacterium ulcerans infections) which is relatively unknown by the medical profession in the USA, but it is a major problem in many foci in Africa and other places such as Australia
.
In addition his work at the AFIP included work on the World Health Organization WHO
Center for the Study of Filariasis developed in the Infectious Disease department primarily by Binford, and filarial diseases was one of the major collaborative efforts between Drs. Meyers, Ronald C. Neafie, and Aileen M. Marty.
.
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
, microbiologist
Microbiologist
A microbiologist is a scientist who works in the field of microbiology. Microbiologists study organisms called microbes. Microbes can take the form of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protists...
, chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
, humanitarian, and medical missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
. He pioneered new medical techniques, discovered new infectious agents, unraveled the pathogenesis of many scourges of mankind, and trained countless researchers and scientist. Meyers is a humble but brilliant man who has dedicated his life to improving the health and wellbeing of human beings from all walks of life and from all corners of the globe. He served many years as a medical missionary in Africa and continues to travel to exotic places to help end human suffering from scourges that the World Health Organization
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health...
(WHO
Who
Who may refer to:* Who , an English-language pronoun* who , a Unix command* Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism- Art and entertainment :* Who? , a 1958 novel by Algis Budrys...
) considers the neglected tropical diseases. He is particularly well known for his work with Hansen’s disease (Leprosy
Leprosy
Leprosy or Hansen's disease is a chronic disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Named after physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen, leprosy is primarily a granulomatous disease of the peripheral nerves and mucosa of the upper respiratory tract; skin lesions...
), Buruli ulcer
Buruli ulcer
The Buruli ulcer is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans. The genus also includes the causative agents of tuberculosis and leprosy...
, and filarial diseases.
Early life and biography
Dr. Wayne M Meyers was born on a small farm in west central Pennsylvania, in Huntingdon CountyHuntingdon County, Pennsylvania
Huntingdon County is a county located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. In 2010, its population was 45,913.Huntingdon County was created on September 20, 1787, from part of Bedford County. Its county seat is Huntingdon.-Geography:According to the U.S...
. Most of his ancestors were farmers. His father was a farmer and a carpenter, and worked as a carpenter on steamboats going up and down the Mississippi from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. His mother was born on the farm that she lived on all her life. Wayne attended the local elementary one-room school and later went to a consolidated high school in Saxton, Pennsylvania. In 1941 he started his studies at Juniata College
Juniata College
Juniata College is a private liberal arts college located in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. It is named after the Juniata River — one of the principal tributaries of the Susquehanna River. In 1876 it became the first college founded by the Church of the Brethren and has been co-educational since...
, in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, where he majored in chemistry.
His studies were interrupted by World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. He was drafted in 1944, when he was more than three years through college, and served in a signal company in an infantry division, in the South Pacific. He spent most of his service time in the Philippines serving mainly as a cryptographer in the 43rd Infantry Division. At the end of World War II, he was in Luzon, and went to Japan in the Army of Occupation.
After the war, he was able to return to Juniata College and obtain his chemistry degree. Then he went to work with U.S. Steel as a research chemist in Pittsburgh, in physical chemistry in the metallurgical area. He wanted, however, to do humanitarian work, and having a rather strong religious background he decided that perhaps missionary work would be the best way to fulfill this. So, he went to seminary in Chicago. During that time, he realized that medicine was the field in which he could best serve. To accomplish this he returned for a year to Juniata College and completed his biology studies for medical school and thereafter obtained a scholarship at the University of Wisconsin, where he completed his degree in medical microbiology. He obtained his MS in 1953, and his PhD in 1955. Following that, he went to medical school at Baylor College of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine, located in the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas, USA, is a highly regarded medical school and leading center for biomedical research and clinical care...
, in Houston. To support his family, he took an instructorship in microbiology and did research in the microbiology department while attending medical school.
Meyers graduated medical school in 1959, and did his internship in Pennsylvania. Then, with missionary medicine in mind, he worked in a hospital in Michigan, doing primarily surgery. He recognized that anyone planning to do medical work overseas must have some expertise in surgery. He finished his surgical experience in the US around October 1961, and went to Africa, under the auspices of the American Leprosy Missions.
While in college, Wayne met and soon married his wife Esther Kleinschmidt (a descendant of Franz Heinrich Kleinschmidt
Franz Heinrich Kleinschmidt
Franz Heinrich Kleinschmidt was a German missionary and linguist who worked in South-West Africa, today Namibia. He founded the missionary station and town of Rehoboth and together with Carl Hugo Hahn set up the first Rhenish mission station to the Herero people in Gross Barmen...
). His wife's parents had gone to Africa in 1923, and she had grown up in the Belgian Congo
Belgian Congo
The Belgian Congo was the formal title of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo between King Leopold II's formal relinquishment of his personal control over the state to Belgium on 15 November 1908, and Congolese independence on 30 June 1960.-Congo Free State, 1884–1908:Until the latter...
. Her grandfather had moved to what is now Namibia
Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...
in the early 19th century and is buried in Namibia. Esther's father died in the Congo 1964 and is buried in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Wayne and Esther have four children: Amy, George, Daniel, and Sara.
Medical Missionary
He served in a one-doctor hospital in a remote area of BurundiBurundi
Burundi , officially the Republic of Burundi , is a landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Its capital is Bujumbura...
near the Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
border. Burundi at that time was a country in turmoil, because the Tutsi
Tutsi
The Tutsi , or Abatutsi, are an ethnic group in Central Africa. Historically they were often referred to as the Watussi or Watusi. They are the second largest caste in Rwanda and Burundi, the other two being the Hutu and the Twa ....
and the Hutu
Hutu
The Hutu , or Abahutu, are a Central African people, living mainly in Rwanda, Burundi, and eastern DR Congo.-Population statistics:The Hutu are the largest of the three peoples in Burundi and Rwanda; according to the United States Central Intelligence Agency, 84% of Rwandans and 85% of Burundians...
were at war with each other. There was rebellion. In fact, the prime minister had been assassinated no more than two days before Meyers' arrival in the capital city of Usumbura. Burundi was a protectorate
Protectorate
In history, the term protectorate has two different meanings. In its earliest inception, which has been adopted by modern international law, it is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity...
under the Belgian government following the First World War, and was still under Belgian rule when Meyers and his family arrived for work. There had also been three successive crop failures, and Burundi was dealing with a famine. Meyers did as much famine relief work as he did medicine. There were 600 patients in the leprosarium, and his hospital was the only one within about 50 kilometers. Thus, persons with all kinds of medical problems went to the little hospital. Leprosy was a major problem in Burundi. Estimates were then 5-10,000 leprosy patients among 3-4 million inhabitants.
Medications were limited, but sulfones were available, and he was able to provide treatment for a great many people, and care for the physical disabilities of most of the leprosy
Leprosy
Leprosy or Hansen's disease is a chronic disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Named after physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen, leprosy is primarily a granulomatous disease of the peripheral nerves and mucosa of the upper respiratory tract; skin lesions...
patients.
The following year, 1962, he and his family moved to what was then Zaire
Zaire
The Republic of Zaire was the name of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo between 27 October 1971 and 17 May 1997. The name of Zaire derives from the , itself an adaptation of the Kongo word nzere or nzadi, or "the river that swallows all rivers".-Self-proclaimed Father of the Nation:In...
(the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...
), to work in Kivu
Kivu
Kivu was the name for a large "Region" in the Democratic Republic of Congo under the rule of Mobutu Sese Seko that bordered Lake Kivu. It included three "Sub-Regions" : Nord-Kivu, Sud-Kivu and Maniema, corresponding to the three current provinces created in 1986...
in extreme eastern part of the country, near the base of the Ruwenzori Mountains (the Mountains of the Moon), which included a beautiful snowcapped mountain even though this is an area very near the Equator. There was a tremendous opportunity for work among leprosy patients there. In Kivu, Dr. Meyers was in charge of a leprosarium with between 2,000 and 3,000 patients. At that time, leprosy patients were nearly all treated as in-patients.
Unfortunately, this was a dangerous time to be in the DRC; the land was in the early stages of the Congo Crisis
Congo Crisis
The Congo Crisis was a period of turmoil in the First Republic of the Congo that began with national independence from Belgium and ended with the seizing of power by Joseph Mobutu...
. Joseph Mobutu had seized power in a military coup and soon arrested, tortured, and eventually had the elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba
Lumumba
Lumumba can refer to:*Patrice Lumumba , the first Prime Minister of the Congo*Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, a Sudanese diplomat and negotiator at 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference...
killed. Soon after Dr. Meyers and his family arrived a rebellion swept through their area. It began south, around Albertville
Albertville
Albertville is a commune in the Savoie department in the Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France.The town is best known for hosting the 1992 Winter Olympics.-Geography:...
, and swept north, eventually to involve nearly half the country, on a line diagonally drawn between the Ubangi and the Shaba
Shaba
Shaba may refer to:* Shaba, Kenya* Shaba National Reserve in Kenya* Shaba Province, name of Katanga Province in present DR Congo between 1971 and 1997* variant spelling of Shebaa`* Shaba Games...
area. The Leprosarium was right along the Uganda border. Because of health reasons for one of their daughters, Wayne and his wife, Esther left the little jungle hospital just a couple of months before the rebels arrived and were not captured, however, all of their belongings and personal effects were, of course, lost. But they felt that was a small thing compared to what happened to so many others including Esther's mother who remained and was captured by the rebels. Esther's mother was saved by some very kind local merchants who included her in a list of their wives and paid a large ransom for the whole group of women to cross the border into Sudan, where they were captured again by Sudanese rebels—but all eventually made their way to freedom. They had hoped to return, but with the rebellion, it was impossible to enter at that time. So the American Leprosy Missions moved the family to the Bas-Congo (Lower Congo), about halfway between Matadi
Matadi
Matadi is the chief sea port of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the capital of the Bas-Congo province. It has a population of 245,862 . Matadi is situated on the left bank of the Congo River from the mouth and below the last navigable point before rapids make the river impassable for a...
and Kinshasa
Kinshasa
Kinshasa is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The city is located on the Congo River....
.
The hospital in the Bas-Congo, was much larger, about a 450-bed hospital, and they had many services and more physicians. So there was an opportunity to concentrate on leprosy. The medical missionaries developed a leprosy program that involved some 20 outlying centers. All leprosy patients were eventually discharged from the leprosarium, and seen and treated in these outlying centers, which Dr Meyers visited regularly by Land Rover or by airplane. Dr. Meyers was also responsible for the dermatology at the hospital, and also for the laboratory and pathology. In addition to Leprosy, Dr Meyers encounterd many other diseases including some which would later become part of his great life work, Buruli Ulcer
Buruli ulcer
The Buruli ulcer is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans. The genus also includes the causative agents of tuberculosis and leprosy...
and Streptocerciasis.
Dr. Meyers and his family lived in the Bas-Congo
Bas-Congo
Bas-Congo is one of the eleven provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is the only province with a coastline and it borders Bandundu province to the east and Kinshasa to the northeast...
from 1965 until 1973. Though the HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
/AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
epidemic
Epidemic
In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...
was unknown to the world at that time, with current knowledge it appears that HIV/AIDS was already present in the area. Meyers travelled extensively through the African region going to different mission stations, universities and other teaching centers in order to develop the Leprosy service in the country. During these visits, especially those in the Stanleyville (Kisangani
Kisangani
Kisangani is the capital of Orientale Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is the 3rd largest urbanized city in the country and the largest of the cities that lie in the tropical woodlands of the Congo....
) area where AIDS may have arisen, Dr. Meyers and his colleagues saw patients whose symptoms fit the definition of AIDS and may well have been victims of that disease. It was established that some sera taken by the Belgians as early as 1959 were positive for HIV. Specifically, Dr. David Ho and colleagues from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York told a conference that using that sera from 1959 they identified a case of HIV infection to a man living in what was then the Belgian Congo. This and other data demonstrate that HIV/AIDS existed in the Bas-Congo during the years that Dr. Meyers served in the region.
In 1973 Meyers and his family moved to Hawaii. He worked at the University of Hawaii as a professor of pathology for two years and became involved with the leprosy research on Molokai
Molokai
Molokai or Molokai is an island in the Hawaiian archipelago. It is 38 by 10 miles in size with a land area of , making it the fifth largest of the main Hawaiian Islands and the 27th largest island in the United States. It lies east of Oahu across the 25-mile wide Kaiwi Channel and north of...
and also worked with leprosy patients, both on Oahu
Oahu
Oahu or Oahu , known as "The Gathering Place", is the third largest of the Hawaiian Islands and most populous of the islands in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital Honolulu is located on the southeast coast...
, at the Hale Mohalu Center in Pearl City, and on Molokai. While he was in Hawaii he was also able to spend some time organizing and analyzing the reports, documents, and tissue samples he had collected on leprosy patients from Africa and he used that knowledge to help his patients in Hawaii.
Working with and for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology
Meyers first visited the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in 1961, before going to Africa. At that time, he met Dr. Daniel H. Connor, who was then planning to go to UgandaUganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
on a project which Dr. Chapman H Binford (Chair of the Infectious Disease Department) and Dr. Robert E. Stowell (Scientific Director of the AFIP) had arranged., They had made a trip to Africa a year or so previously and had arranged collaborative projects with two academic institutions in Africa: one at Onderstepoort
Onderstepoort
Onderstepoort is situated in Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa. Its geographical coordinates are .Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute and the faculty of veterinary science of the University of Pretoria, founded by Sir Arnold Theiler, is also situated here...
, in Gauteng
Gauteng
Gauteng is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. It was formed from part of the old Transvaal Province after South Africa's first all-race elections on 27 April 1994...
, South Africa, near Pretoria
Pretoria
Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.Pretoria is...
; and the other one in Kampala
Kampala
Kampala is the largest city and capital of Uganda. The city is divided into five boroughs that oversee local planning: Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division and Lubaga Division. The city is coterminous with Kampala District.-History: of Buganda, had chosen...
, Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
at Makerere University
Makerere University
Makerere University , Uganda's largest and second-oldest higher institution of learning, , was first established as a technical school in 1922. In 1963 it became the University of East Africa, offering courses leading to general degrees from the University of London...
. Meyers visited Dr. Connor when he was in Burundi in 1962, and from that time on collaborated with the AFIP. Meyers worked through Dr. Binford, sending specimens and studying special patients. When Dr. Connor returned to the AFIP, their collaboration increased.
Meyers and his colleagues obtained a significant grant from the Research and Development Command of the U.S. Army, and conducted research in sleeping sickness, trypanosomiasis, and Buruli ulcer during about five of his eight years at this post in the Lower Congo. He worked in the Bas-Congo from 1965 until 1973.
At the time of independence, in 1960, the Belgians had trypanosomiasis
Trypanosomiasis
Trypanosomiasis or trypanosomosis is the name of several diseases in vertebrates caused by parasitic protozoan trypanosomes of the genus Trypanosoma. Approximately 500,000 men, women and children in 36 countries of sub-Saharan Africa suffer from human African trypanosomiasis which is caused by...
pretty well under control in what had been the Belgian Congo. When Meyers began working in the Bas-Congo in 1965, it was uncommon to see a patient with active trypanosomiasis. By the time he left there in 1973, he and other physicians were seeing hundreds of cases annually of African-type sleeping sickness caused by trypanosomes in the hospital. They would come in spontaneously; there was no survey work being done. Thus, this was very important research.
Meyers joined the staff at the AFIP in 1975 after returning from Africa and Hawaii. At the institute he followed the AFIP mission of providing Education, Consultation, and Research. Dr. Meyers helped Dr. Binford with the AFIP's Registry of Leprosy, which has material from between 30,000 to 40,000 cases of leprosy. This is probably largest collection of pathologic materials from leprosy patients anywhere in the world. There was a lot of material on other mycobacterial diseases, such as Buruli ulcer
Buruli ulcer
The Buruli ulcer is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans. The genus also includes the causative agents of tuberculosis and leprosy...
, (Mycobacterium ulcerans infections) which is relatively unknown by the medical profession in the USA, but it is a major problem in many foci in Africa and other places such as Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
In addition his work at the AFIP included work on the World Health Organization WHO
Who
Who may refer to:* Who , an English-language pronoun* who , a Unix command* Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism- Art and entertainment :* Who? , a 1958 novel by Algis Budrys...
Center for the Study of Filariasis developed in the Infectious Disease department primarily by Binford, and filarial diseases was one of the major collaborative efforts between Drs. Meyers, Ronald C. Neafie, and Aileen M. Marty.
Discoveries with Filarial Nematodes
Among the many patients that Dr Meyers helped at the Leprosarium were some with diseases that mimicked leprosy. A series of patients had hypopigmented areas of the skin that resembled tuberculoid leprosy, but did not have the loss of sensation associated with leprosy lesions. Meyers biopsied these and through his collaborations with the AFIP discovered the adult form of Mansonella streptocercaMansonella streptocerca
Mansonella streptocerca, , is the scientific name of a human parasitic roundworm causing the disease of streptocerciasis...
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