Bites in the Night

When Francisco Pizarro's conquistadores began pushing their way up the coastal valleys of Peru, a fourth of them sickened and died of a strange fever. Others suffered for months from hideous warts.

In those same valleys, the fever and the warts still linger--a threat to strangers, though seldom to the natives. One fever outbreak killed 7,000 workmen and stopped the building of a railroad. But for 300 years the connection between the fever and the warts was unrecognized. Then in 1885, Daniel Carrion, a medical student, inoculated himself with fluid from a patient's warts. He fell ill of the fever and died. In his honor, the fever and the warts were lumped together as Carrion's disease. Still there was no cure.

Last week, Peruvian and U.S. doctors reported that Carrion's disease has been virtually defeated. It is spread by sand-flies, which bite mainly at night, and it attacks the native Indians in mild form in childhood. The severer cases in later life, especially among white intruders, often have a complication similar to typhoid fever. These cases, the doctors report, can be controlled by Chloromycetin. Streptomycin checks the warts.

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