Stamped “Restricted.”
Gen’l Medical Laboratory
APO 519 c/o Postmaster
New York, New York
May 29, 1943
Dear Walter:
May thanks for your letter of March 12 and the information contained in the enclosures. The report on the results of tests on scabies is very interesting and I have discussed it with the Dermatologist who is in charge of that disease in our forces. I am interested to learn whether the benzyl benzoate, alcohol, SAT formula would be effective against motile lice and louse eggs on the body. Have any tests along this line been done? I notice in Circular Letter No. 33 Office Surgeon General, Feb. 2, 1943 “Treatment and control of certain tropical diseases,” a formula for delousing the bodies of infested personnel. Would this be one that was developed at Orlando? The possibilities of the impregnated clothing especially with the new insecticide seems like the answer to a prayer, and appears not to be outside the limits of practicability for the protection of all troops. I should very much like to test it on a large scale with troops but this appears to be out of the question here as the incidence of infestation is almost nil. For some time, I have been urging that I or some one else be sent to areas where problems are more acute and where practical tests could be run with new recently developed materials under a variety of conditions. So far, it hasn’t apparently been deemed fit to release me for work of that kind, but to keep me here for odd bits of consultant service in my line of work and more or less to be on hand should something develop. Maybe this is as it should be but it is certainly not what I would expect. There is so much yet to be learned on the practical side for the new methods.
May 29, 1943
The box of books and Freon cylinders which you so kindly sent has never reached me and I suppose they went to the bottom somewhere along the way.
I am anxioius to see Gen. B. and Buxton when they return in order to get first hand information on the work there. The OSRD reports are coming through fine now and I read them with intense interest. If you could send one or two pounds of SAT we could do a good test on scabies. Eddy’s report didn’t mention what kind of alcohol was used. Would you let us have that information?
How is everything going in the Division? Deniza tells me that Coeline didn’t get her promotion. It’s a darned shame but I know you did everything possible for her.
Give my regards to everyone there and the rest of the folks in the Division when you see them. Remember me to Ina and the boys.
Sincerely yours
Emory C. Cushing
Attached note forwarding the letter to Knipling: “If you care to answer & send SAT that you have tested, we will ship from here. W.E. Dove.”