A genealogical survey of some members of the Fore population living near Okapa was
carried out by Prof. H. N. Robson and Dr F. A. Rhodes in December 1957. This was shortly
after the publication of the first paper on kuru in which Zigas & Gajdusek (1957) reported, inter
alia, the unusual sex and age distribution in victims of the disease (with
adult males only rarely affected and female victims apparently comprising two separate
classes—childhood and adult) and mentioned the possibility of a genetic
predisposition. In the genealogical survey, the incidence of kuru in males was almost
equal to that in young females and most of the mothers of these two classes of victims
(i.e. males and young females) themselves were said to have died of kuru. This finding
and examination of the pedigrees led to the tentative suggestion by Bennett that kuru
might be controlled by an autosomal gene dominant to its allele in
females and recessive in males, with the early onset (childhood) cases in females being
homozygotes KK. These studies were extended in 1959 with the support of the
University of Adelaide, the Public Health Department of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and a
grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Essentially the same family patterns were found
in all parts of the kuru region that were visited.When the high frequency of kuru, especially in the South Fore, made it seem increasingly
unlikely that the genetic interpretation was tenable, attention was directed to the
study of ‘dietary, ritual or medicinal practices which are, or perhaps were,
limited almost entirely to adult females and children and only rarely extended to adult
males’ (Bennett 1962). In June 1961,
two anthropologists, Robert and Shirley Glasse, were recruited as University Research
Fellows (with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation grant) to study these and
related questions in the kuru region. Their research assignment involved settling in a
South Fore village and after becoming fluent in the Fore language learning as much as
possible about relevant dietary practices, etc., referred to above. In a letter of 24
October 1961, Bob Glasse wrote, ‘We are now fairly confident that kuru is of
recent origin…: it begins to look as if kuru began in the North Fore about
1925 and reached the South Fore within the space of five years. The early incidence was
very low… (and) it is only in the past ten or fifteen years that the
incidence has increased and that men have begun to fall ill.’ In Adelaide in
April 1962 Bob Glasse reported that, until approximately 8 years previously, all corpses
in the kuru region were eaten; this cannibalism was practised almost exclusively by the
women who fed the semi-cooked flesh to the children and themselves, the daughters
generally having the brain and the rest of the head. Berndt (1958) had mentioned cannibalism involving kuru victims in the Fore
but R. M. Glasse uncovered the very significant role of women in feeding the semi-cooked
flesh to children and themselves. This led to an understanding not only of the
characteristic sex and age distribution of kuru victims but also of how the disease had
been spread and, later, with the cessation of cannibalism, an explanation for the steady
decline in incidence (Glasse 1967).Among those who deserve to be remembered for their outstanding work caring for kuru
victims and their families, special mention should be made of Dr Andrew Gray, who was
the first Medical Officer to be appointed to Okapa by the PNG Department of Public
Health. For 3 years from early 1959, he not only provided general medical services for
the whole area but also took a keen interest in the kuru problem and with the help of
two nursing sisters from the Lutheran Mission in New Guinea provided care in the Okapa
Hospital for many young orphans whose mothers had died of kuru. The Lutheran Kuru Centre
was later established at Awande and in February 1964 when hospital amenities (blankets,
baby food and clothing, etc.) from the Australian Red Cross Society were delivered
there, it is recorded that 128 orphans and kuru victims were being cared for.