Monday Nite Aug 11th
My Dear Ina,
It was mighty fine to get your letter and you are so sweet to write nice ones. They are always cheerful and make me feel that I am real fortunate to have such a nice little girl friend.
August 11, 1924
My work has been keeping me on the go and about the only thing I have stopped for, was to eat and sleep. My colleague, Dr. K.S., left me Saturday, and will be gone most of this week. He went to Tennessee to spend a few days with the family. I am enjoying his vacation too, for I do have a breathing spell once in a while now, though I keep on the go. He is about the most energetic man I ever met and while it is a real pleasure to work with him, he goes about twice as fast as anyone else. He wanted me to send a night letter every night about the work, but I finally convinced him that every two nights should be sufficient.
Most of the cases of “larval Migrans” come from the beach and since the clinic I have been making an intensive study of conditions in the city where cases have been known to originate. I am doing this in connection with a final check on the treatments given at the clinic. It occurred to me that there was certainly some environments in the city which existed at the beach and my idea was to make a careful survey of both. Sunday I went down to Pablo early and worked most all day, though there are lots of things to be studied down there.
This may seem peculiar, but the parasite is so small that we have not been able to isolate it or identify it. It then behooves us to see under what conditions it develops and then try to strike upon the right thing and to produce the disease artificially. I shipped Mr. Bishopp about 50 sections of skin containing the parasites, and he is trying to locate them while in Washington. He is surrounded with specialists of all kinds and with the facilities there, he would stand a better chance to isolate them than I would at work here. At any event he will not be able to determine just what parasite is responsible for the disease, but can tell in a general way to what group it belongs. It will still be up to me to locate the proper one and with Dr. K.S. to produce the disease artificially. We may be able to do this before he finishes with that part, but if possible we would like to work it out both ways. Dr. K.S. believes that he and I will be the ones to locate and prove it, though he has worked at it for 14 years.
It is no small task, but I believe we will work it out OK. Dr. K.S. says it may take a couple of years but he intends to stay with it if it costs him everything. We have worked out an excellent treatment, but until we know what the thing is and where it develops we will not be able to do much in preventing infestations. We can’t hope to solve everything at once, for it is entirely new. There is absolutely nothing in literature regarding the cause of this malady. It may be quite a simple thing when we hit it and again it may be very complicated.
It is about 11 o’clock so guess I’d better say goodnight.
Kindest regards to all and very best for yourself,
Always
Walter
500 Professional Bldg
c/o Dr. K.S.