Title:

Letter from Louise Pearce to Michael Heidelberger

Creator:

Pearce, Louise

Recipient:

Heidelberger, Michael

Date:

17 July 1920

Description:

In 1919, Heidelberger and Walter A. Jacobs synthesized a variant of the aromatic arsenical Salvarsan, Paul Ehrlich's "magic bullet" for syphilis, which proved effective against trypanosomes, the parasites that cause African sleeping sickness. They called it tryparsamide. Louise Pearce conducted the successful (and to her own health, risky) human field trials of tryparsamide in the Belgian Congo, a colonial region of Africa in which the disease was endemic. In this letter she described her voyage to Africa, the conventional treatment for the disease administered in the local hospital in Leopoldville (today Kinshasa), and Pearce's efforts to enlist sick patients for the trial.

Location:

Box: 5. Folder: 9

Rights:

Courtesy of Michael Heidelberger.

Disclaimer:

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Genre:

Letters (correspondence)

Subject:

Trypanosomiasis, African

Format:

Text

Extent:

2 pages

Language:

English

Legacy ID:

DHBBNQ

NLM ID:

101584940X217

Profiles Collection:

The Michael Heidelberger Papers

Shareable Link:

https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/101584940X217

Story Section:

The Making of an Immunologist: Heidelberger's Years at the Rockefeller Institute, 1912-1927