Flukes & Missionary

In Korea a fluke, a small flat leaflike worm, laid its minute eggs in a creek. The eggs got into a snail. A fish ate the snail. Rev. Ralph Thurber, missionary, ate the fish without thorough cooking. The flukes wandered through his body until they reached his viscera where they nested. Result: last week Mr. Thurber, 37, was in Cleveland's City Hospital, an emaciated cynosure of neighboring medical eyes. They had never before seen a case of fluke.* Mr. Thurber was obliged to diagnose his own case, explain its etiology, show the deep scars of two operations to repair previous fluke damage, prognose his death within a month. No cure is known. He had faltered in Cleveland on his way to Detroit from a furlough visit with his mother in Philadelphia.

*Different flukes attack different organs in man. Snails in all cases, shell fish in some, transmit the infestations to man, directly or through fish. Flukes rarely infest man in the U. S. But there is a fluke which often affects sheep, cattle, swine. The sheep disease is called "rot."

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