BY BILL BROWN

THE RECENT ABC program about kuru omitted recognition of the role of Vin Zigas in identifying the disease, even though it may have been a minor one.

I had previously known Zigas when we were both stationed in the Goilala. He arrived in the Kainantu sub-district some months after I had been transferred to the Sepik.

But, while I have no first hand knowledge of the origins of the detection of the disease, because of my interest in the subject I tried to stay informed.

Patrol Officer John McArthur was accepted as highlighting the role of Kuru and drawing it to Zigas's attention.

McArthur had been stationed at Taramo, alongside Mount Michael, and relocated the post to Okapa. He and Cadet Patrol Officer Paul Healy opened Okapa in February-March 1953.

Patrol Officer John Colman subsequently took over at Okapa and worked closely with Zigas.

McArthur and Healey have been dead for some time, Colman died last year. His widow, Joan, is still alive, and switched on but he was single in the Okapa era.

My understanding is that Vin Zigas took up the kuru project sometime in 1956, but it may have been later.

Alan Kelly, whose contribution was also not recognised, played some role, possibly in 1958.

As an aside, Tobias Schwoerer, a Swiss PhD student attached to the Kuru Research Unit in Goroka, commented that the first written record of kuru he could find was contained in one of my patrol reports (Kainantu Patrol Report No 8 of 1953/54 (13 Jan - 20 Feb).

I still have one of the carbon copies of that report:

Keru [sic] a form of sorcery. The first sign of impending death is a general debility which is followed by general weakness and inability to stand. The victim retires to her house. She is able to take a little nourishment but suffers from violent shivering. The next stage is that the victim lies down in the house and cannot take nourishment and death eventually ensures.

Coincidentally, the same report has another section headed ‘Cannibalism’. The details differ from Alper's recital:

A dead body may be eaten soon after death or some months after. If it is not eaten soon after death it is buried and disinterred after approximately one month. Care is taken when the body is interred and when it is disinterred it is shovelled with great care onto pandanus mats.

The maggots are also treated with care as they are regarded as an integral part of the body as they have consumed the bodies [sic] juices and they too are consumed. All parties [sic] of the body are consumed, the flesh being mixed with green vegetables and roasted in bamboos.