Roy Scragg

• University of Papua New Guinea

Kuru has probably spawned more papers and books than any other uncommon disease, and produced two Nobel laureates. This rapidly progressive and inevitably fatal neurological condition occurred only among people in the Okapa area of Papua New Guinea. It had an extraordinarily long incubation period. Genealogical studies determined that kuru probably...

Nineteenth-century European colonialists of Papua New Guinea brought western ideas and government, along with diseases that decimated the population. They received in exchange the killing endemic diseases of the country and all nineteenth-century settlers suffered severely. As doctors were few, and medicines did little, and as sick children could n...

There has been increasing, worldwide dissatisfaction with the relevance of medical education to health care. Recently, a special task group set up by The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners made a study of how a department of personal and family medicine could participate in the education of the medical student. The task was to presen...

The commencement of demographic transition with rapid mortality decline and changing fertility patterns has been studied prospectively for 20 years among over 5000 persons in Buka and New Ireland—two pre-industrial societies of New Guinea. The demographic study has been complemented by a detailed social study of fertility variables in three societi...

A high incidence of multiple births has been reported in an area of New Britain where there is no evidence that birth control is practised. Analysis failed to confirm Edwards' observation that the average size of the sibship after birth of twins varies with the sex of the twins. Repeated twinning occurred in 14% of women who had given birth to twin...

Two cases of death due to envenomation, as a result of massive stings of Vespa tropica and V. affinis in the Territory, Papua and New Guinea are herein reported.

• (1)(1)Isoniazid was given alone in a 17- to 26-month trial in six patients, five with lepromatous leprosy, and one with tuberculoid leprosy, who had responded poorly to, or had had repeated lepra reactions from, the sulphone group of drugs. • (2)The dosage was never less than 3.9 mg/kg. body weight, and usually 8 to 9 mg/kg. This dosage was well...