西ニューギニアの神経難病多発地域を歩く : 土地・病・精霊・医学研究

Abstract

A hundred thousand years ago, Homo Sapiens Sapiens left their motherland Africa for Eurasia. Eventually they arrived at New Guinea fifty thousand years later. They are considered as the ancestors of modem Papuan natives. A prion disease named Kuru had been endemic among the Fore people in the east New Guinea before D. Carleton Gejdusek found neurodegenerative diseases in high incidence among the Auyu and Jakai people in coastal jungle of west New Guinea. A quarter of a century has passed since Gejdusek diccovered patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinsonism-Dementia and poliomyeloradiculitis. In the years 2001 through 2007 we revisited and rediscovered the neurodegenerative diseases in the same high incidence among the Auyu and Jakai people. We visited them living along the Ia river, a branch of the great Digul. A dugout canoe is the only means of transportation alongside this river. We sailed forty kilometers upstream, and found many patients with ALS or parkinsonism there. We walked around tropical swamp and sailed dark river with humus and lignin, and wondered if ecology and animism of the Auyu people are different from that of modem Japanese. Or our medical science has nothing to do with such Modem Orientalism as E.W. Said wrote?