Wormy Gnomes

The weird gnome villages of Mexico and Central America came to world attention last week, at the Pan-American conference of health directors in Washington, in the candid report of Dr. Miguel Bustamente of Mexico City, a Johns Hopkins graduate.

When night falls on the mountains south of the Rio Grande, human gnomes emerge from their huts and crannies. They are knobby-headed, big-eared, scaly-skinned creatures. Some of them are splotched with red, like rusty iron. Others are mottled with green, like stained copper. They resemble living pieces of their cordilIcras lit by the sun setting over the Pacific. But they cannot look at the sun. It hurts their red and puffy eyes which can only peer into shadows for herbs, roots and grains on which to feed. When the dazzling sun disappears for the night, the gnomes chirk up. Pouty lips mumble rusticities into lumpish ears. The males creep forth to forage. The older females brew the night's potage. And gnats skitter across the moonbeams.

Worms, with the help of the gnats, make gnomes of these mountain peoples. The worms are a species of Filariae, called Onchocerca caecutiens, about one and one-quarter inches long, slimmer than a hair and white. When they get into the skin and breed, they soon form a network of colonies on the skull, resembling sodden felt and causing cranial protuberances. Wandering worms and their excrement give rise to the other gnomelike appearances.

Dr. Bustamente, reluctant as he was to broadcast such a squalid story about his country, hoped to learn at Washington last week of some immunizing agent against Filariae. There seems to be none. But it is possible to prevent the spread of their infestation by stopping the breeding of gnats which carry the eggs of the worm from one highlander to another.

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