Dr. Barnard's Epidemic

The evening of March 5, 1968, was a big occasion at Cornell University Medical College on Manhattan's East Side. A world celebrity was appearing, and hundreds of medical students wanted to hear him. Scores of them rushed across the street for a quick bite at the dormitory snack bar, and many of them ordered hamburgers. In normal times, no matter how a burger is ordered at the snack bar, it always turns out rare. That night, under the sudden pressure of short-order business, the hamburgers were just about raw. And within two weeks, five of the students came down with confirmed cases of toxoplasmosis--not many, but enough to make up the first recorded epidemic of this disease.

Common Cause. Toxoplasmosis is one of the most widespread and least understood diseases. Best estimates are that one person in three has or has had the infection, making a worldwide total of a round billion. The microbe responsible is a minute animal (protozoon) called Toxoplasma gondii. How it gets into the human body is, or was, unclear. Once there, it may cause no significant illness, so that countless people have antibody against Toxoplasma, although they have no recollection of having had a related illness.

The cases of the five Cornell med students were clear-cut, Dr. B. H. Kean, professor of tropical medicine, reported last week. They came down with fever and a rash, headaches around the eyes, aches and pains in their muscles, and many of their lymph nodes were enlarged. Two suffered nausea and two felt a numbness in their legs and feet. Muscle pain was the worst and most persistent symptom, lasting up to a month in some cases.

Until now, the question whether Toxoplasma parasites could come from undercooked beef has been open, although transmission through pork and lamb has been established. Because the five students had not eaten the same food except on the night of the big lecture, Kean is confident that they picked up their parasites from the snack bar's hamburgers. For them, as for most victims, the illness was uncomfortable and not disabling. But Toxoplasma is like rubella in one respect: it wreaks its worst havoc on the unborn child, causing encephalitis, hydrocephalus, heart damage and hepatitis. Says Kean: "If this epidemic had occurred in five pregnant women, the potential danger to their unborn children--either fetal death or severe brain damage--would have been enormous."

The big-name speaker who drew the crowd on March 5 was that Cape Town heart surgeon. So, says Kean: "Indirectly, Dr. Christiaan Barnard was responsible for this epidemic."

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