BICHOS
PAGE 27 The fruit was contaminated by a bicho: The parasite that causes the kissing bug disease can be contracted through what is called “oral transmission,” which means the parasite is in food or drink and ingested. Belkisyolé Alarcón de Noya et al., “Update on Oral Chagas Disease Outbreaks in Venezuela: Epidemiological, Clinical and Diagnostic Approaches,” Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz 110, no. 3 (May 2015): 377–86.
PAGE 31 In March 1835, he and his guide rode mules: Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle, ed. Leonard Engel (New York: Anchor Books, 1962), 331.
PAGE 32 when they finally escaped the locusts and reached Luján de Cuyo: Darwin seems to have mistakenly identified Luján de Cuyo as Luxan in his writings. “Breve historia de nuestro querido Luján de Cuyo,” Noticias Lujaninas Diario Online, May 11, 2019.
PAGE 32 he wrote how “disgusting” it was to feel: R.D. Keynes, Charles Darwin’s Beagle Dairy, (Cambridge University Press, 2001), 315.
PAGE 32 In 1959, nearly eight decades after his death: Saul Adler, “Darwin’s Illness,” Nature 184, no. 4693 (October 1959): 1102–3; and A. W. Woodruff, “Darwin’s Health in Relation to His Voyage to South America,” British Medical Journal 1, no. 5437 (March 1965): 745–50.
PAGE 32 He was certainly sick for most of his life: Anthony K. Campbell and Stephanie B. Matthews, “Darwin Diagnosed?” Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 116, no. 4 (December 2015): 964–84.
PAGE 32 The only fact we know for sure from Darwin’s notebooks: Darwin collected a kissing bug from Iquique which at the time belonged to Peru but is now considered part of Chile. Kenneth G. V. Smith, “Darwin’s Insects,” 89 and 96–97.
PAGE 33 In Chile, the kissing bug was “flat as a wafer”: Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle, 331. Details of the officer being bitten are also from this source.
PAGE 33 Eighteen days later, it wanted to feed again: Smith, “Darwin’s Insects,” 96.
PAGE 33 In the 1500s, three hundred years before Darwin traveled: Felipe Guhl, “Chagas Disease in Pre-Colombian Civilizations,” in American Trypanosomiasis, Chagas Disease: One Hundred Years of Research, 2nd eds., ed. Jenny Telleria and Michel Tibayrenc (New York: Elsevier, 2017), 33.
PAGE 33 In 1855, twenty years after Charles Darwin encountered the kissing bugs: Arthur V. Evans and James N. Hogue, Introduction to California Beetles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 12.
PAGE 33 He named it Conorhinus sanguisuga: John Le Conte and A. Retzius, “September 25th; Descriptions of New Species of Astacus from Georgia; On a New Species of Gelasimus; Remarks on Two Species of American Cimex; On Artificially Formed Skulls from the Ancient World,” Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 7 (1854): 399–408.
PAGE 34 Kissing bugs came to be called triatomine insects: M.D. Bargues, C. Schofield, and J.-P. Dujardin. “Classification and Systematics of the Triatominae,” in American Trypanosomiasis, Chagas Disease: One Hundred Years of Research, 2nd ed., eds. Jenny Telleria and Michel Tibayrenc. (New York: Elsevier, 2017).
PAGE 34 All over the Americas, though, people adopted other names: Guhl, “Chagas Disease in Pre-Colombian Civilizations,” 31–32.
PAGE 34 In Texas and the Southwest, people have called the kissing bug a bloodsucker: Norman C. Woody and Hannah B. Woody, “American Trypanosomiasis (Chagas’ Disease); First Indigenous Case in the United States,” Journal of the American Medical Association 159, no. 7 (October 15, 1955): 676–677.
PAGE 34 Vinchuca means “bug that lets itself fall”: Guhl, “Chagas Disease in Pre-Colombian Civilizations,” 30.
PAGE 35 It began when when an elderly man woke up: “Bite of a Strange Bug,” Washington Post, June 20, 1899; and Melissa Nolan Garcia et al., “The 1899 United States Kissing Bug Epidemic,” PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 9, no. 12 (December 2015).
PAGE 35 “In the absence of a scientific name for the creature”: “An Entomological Mystery,” Washington Post, June 23, 1899.
PAGE 35 In New York City, Bellevue Hospital admitted six people: “More ’Kissing Bug’ Victims,” New York Times, July 2, 1899.
PAGE 35 Boston alone had a dozen cases: “Twelve Kissing Bug Victims,” Boston Daily Globe, July 25, 1899.
PAGE 35 One Delaware newspaper reported that kissing bugs: “Kissing Bug Is Here,” Wilmington Daily Republican, June 30, 1899.
PAGE 35 In Washington, DC, men with bandaged faces: L. O. Howard, “Spider Bites and ’Kissing Bugs,’” Popular Science Monthly 56 (November 1899): 31–41.
PAGE 36 Newspapers named the mysterious insect the kissing bug: “’Kissing Bugs’ at Work,” New York Times, June 29, 1899.
PAGE 36 In Philadelphia, a six-year-old boy woke on a Tuesday morning: “Fatal Bite of Kissing Bug,” Boston Daily Globe, July 6, 1899.
PAGE 36 A two-year-old girl died in Trenton: “Kissing Bug’s Bite Fatal,” Washington Post, July 10, 1899.
PAGE 36 In Chicago, a doctor wrote “kissing bug”: “Killed by Kissing Bug,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 19, 1899.
PAGE 36 Warnings about kissing bugs appeared in newspapers: “The Kissing Bug in El Paso,” El Paso Daily Herald, July 13, 1899; and “The Kissing Bug,” Las Vegas Daily Optic, July 12, 1899.
PAGE 36 One entomologist insisted that the insect bit people on the mouth: “A Kissing Bug Theory,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 13, 1899.
PAGE 36 A doctor proposed that it was probably a “nervous disorder”: “Criminal Unmasked,” Evening Star, June 23, 1899.
PAGE 37 The giant, swollen lips, he wrote, were due: John S. Blankman, letter to the editor, Evening Star, June 23, 1899.
PAGE 37 Shopkeepers sold kissing bug jewelry: Irene Rowland, “Lady and the Beetle,” Washington Post, July 16, 1899.
PAGE 37 Poets wrote lyrical odes to the insect: Robert E. Bartholomew and Hilary Evans, Panic Attacks: Media Manipulation and Mass Delusion (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 2004).
PAGE 37 The Chicago Daily Tribune ran a story: “Yankee Kissing Bug a Terror,” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 3, 1899.
PAGE 37 Leland Ossian Howard, the head of entomology at the US Department of Agriculture: Howard, “Spider Bites and ’Kissing Bugs,’” 31–41.
PAGE 37 They turned to their archives: “’Kissing Bug’ Accused,” New York Times, August 26, 1939.
DR. CHAGAS
I found these five sources particularly helpful for details about the life and work of Dr. Carlos Chagas:
Tania C. de Araujo-Jorge, Jenny Telleria, and Jaime Rios-Dalenz, “History of the Discovery of the American Trypanosomiasis (Chagas Disease),” in American Trypanosomiasis, Chagas Disease: One Hundred Years of Research, 2nd ed., eds. Jenny Telleria and Michel Tibayrenc (New York: Elsevier, 2017), 1–18.
Carlos Chagas, “The Discovery of Trypanosoma cruzi and of American Trypanosomiasis: Historic Retrospect,” Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz 15, no. 1 (1922): 3–11.
Simone Petraglia Kropf and Magali Romero Sá, “The Discovery of Trypanosoma cruzi and Chagas Disease (1908–1909): Tropical Medicine in Brazil,” História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos 16, suppl. 1 (July 2009): 13–34.
Jonathan Leonard, “Carlos Chagas: Pionero de la Salud en el Interior del Brasil,” Boletín de la Oficina Sanitaria Panamericana 110, no. 3 (March 1991): 185–198.
Nancy Leys Stepan, “Appearances and Disappearances,” chap. 6 in Picturing Tropical Nature (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001).
PAGE 40 Building an empire meant encountering pathogens: For a helpful overview about the rise of “tropical medicine,” I recommend John Farley, Bilharzia: A History of Imperial Tropical Medicine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
PAGE 41 By the 1890s, though, they had embraced germ theory: Frank Snowden, “Epidemics in Western Society Since 1600” (Yale University: Open Yale Courses), http://oyc.yale.edu. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.
PAGE 41 No one knew at the time that kissing bugs were guilty: Philippe Büscher et al., “Human African Trypanosom
iasis,” Lancet 390, no. 10110 (June 2017): 2397–2409.
PAGE 41 The disease killed more than a quarter of a million people: For this and other historical details about the disease, see Maryinez Lyons, The Colonial Disease: A Social History of Sleeping Sickness in Northern Zaire, 1900–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
PAGE 42 By the start of the twentieth century, Brazil: José Amador, Medicine and Nation Building in the Americas, 1890–1940 (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2015); and Stepan, “Appearances and Disappearances,” chap. 6 in Picturing Tropical Nature.
PAGE 43 The new buildings gleamed in the sunlight: Teresa Meade, “‘Civilizing Rio de Janeiro’: The Public Health Campaign and the Riot of 1904,” Journal of Social History 20, no. 2 (Winter 1986): 301–22. Other details about the yellow fever campaign are from this article.
PAGE 46 In the 1940s, Dr. Salvador Mazza was able to find: Juan Pablo Zabala, “Historia de la enfermedad de Chagas en Argentina: evolución conceptual, institucional y política,” História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos 16, suppl. 1 (July 2009): 62.
PAGE 47 By 1985, more than seventeen million people: Álvaro Moncayo and Antonio Carlos Silveira, “Current Epidemiological Trends for Chagas Disease in Latin America and Future Challenges in Epidemiology, Surveillance and Health Policy,” Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz 104, suppl. 1 (July 2009): 17–30.
PAGE 47 She had kept a doll and a medal: Kropf and Sá, “The Discovery of Trypanosoma cruzi,” 13–34; and João Amílcar Salgado, “The Centennial of Carlos Chagas and the Girl Berenice,” Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, 75 (1980): 193–195
PELEAS
PAGE 56 The damage T. cruzi inflicts on the esophagus: Fritz Köberle, “Chagas’ Disease and Chagas’ Syndromes: The Pathology of American Trypanosomiasis,” Advances in Parasitology 6 (1968): 63–116.
IT SOUNDS WORSE IN SPANISH
PAGE 63 That negative test results can be a mistake: Diagnosing someone in the chronic stage of the kissing bug disease can be difficult in part because of the sensitivity of the tests and also perhaps because the parasite has distinct genetic lineages. Caryn Bern et al., “Trypanosoma cruzi and Chagas’ Disease in the United States,” Clinical Microbiology Reviews 24, no. 4 (October 2011): 670.
CALL IT GRIEF
PAGE 68 I learned that the baby insects are called nymphs: Herman Lent and Pedro W. Wygodzinsky, “Revision of the Triatominae (Hemiptera, Reduviidae), and Their Significance as Vectors of Chagas’ Disease,” Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 163, art. 3 (1979).
PAGE 69 Although there are 140 species of these insects: S. S. Catalá, F. Noireau, and J.-P. Dujardin, “Biology of Triatominae,” in American Trypanosomiasis, Chagas Disease: One Hundred Years of Research, 2nd ed., eds. Jenny Telleria and Michel Tibayrenc (New York: Elsevier, 2017), p.145–46.
PAGE 69 The faster a kissing bug defecates after biting: Carolina E. Reisenman et al., “Feeding and Defecation Behavior of Triatoma rubida (Uhler, 1894) (Hemiptera: Reduviidae) under Laboratory Conditions, and Its Potential Role as a Vector of Chagas Disease in Arizona, USA,” American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 85, no. 4 (October 2011): 648–56.
PAGE 70 Now I was reading that one study put the global cost: Bruce Y. Lee et al., “Global Economic Burden of Chagas Disease: A Computational Simulation Model,” Lancet Infectious Diseases 13, no. 4 (April 2013): 342–48.
PAGE 70 If Tía Dora had arrived in the United States today: Michael K. Gusmano, “Undocumented Immigrants in the United States: U.S. Health Policy and Access to Care,” The Hastings Center, March 15, 2012.
PAGE 72 Before the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010: “Health Coverage by Race and Ethnicity: The Potential Impact of the Affordable Care Act,” Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, March 13, 2013.
PAGE 72 Now these women and men were waking up in European and American and Asian cities: José Rodrigues Coura and Pedro Albajar Viñas, “Chagas Disease: A New Worldwide Challenge,” Nature 465, no. 7301 (June 2010): S6–7.
INSECTARIO
PAGE 78 Over the decades, he had, along with colleagues: Felipe Guhl, Germán Aguilera, Néstor Pinto, and Daniela Vergara, “Actualización de la distribución geográfica y ecoepidemiología de la fauna de triatominos (Reduviidae: Triatominae) en Colombia,” Biomédica 27, suppl. 1 (January 2007): 143–62.
page 78 He had found that houses in close proximity: Felipe Guhl, Nestor Pinto, and Germán Aguilera, “Sylvatic Triatominae: A New Challenge in Vector Control Transmission,” Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz 104, suppl. 1 (July 2009): 71–75.
PAGE 79 When Andean countries teamed in the nineties: Felipe Guhl and Gustavo A. Vallejo, “Interruption of Chagas Disease Transmission in the Andean Countries: Colombia,” Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz 94, suppl. 1 (September 1999): 413–15.
PAGE 79 The study focused on the drug’s effect on people: Carlos A. Morillo et al., “Randomized Trial of Benznidazole for Chronic Chagas’ Cardiomyopathy,” New England Journal of Medicine 373, no. 14 (October 2015): 1295–306.
PAGE 79 More than 60 percent of emerging infectious diseases: Kate E. Jones, et al., “Global Trends in Emerging Infectious Diseases,” Nature, 451 (February 2008): 990–994.
PAGE 80 There are actually six genetic groups: Simone Frédérique Brenière, Etienne Waleckx, and Christian Barnabé, “Over Six Thousand Trypanosoma cruzi Strains Classified into Discrete Typing Units (DTUs): Attempt at an Inventory,” PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 10, no. 8 (August 2016).
PAGE 81 Atacama is where astronomers go: Simon Romero, “At the End of the Earth, Seeking Clues to the Universe,” New York Times, April 7, 2012.
PAGE 81 It’s where scientists traveled with a telescope: Dennis Overbye, “Darkness Visible, Finally: Astronomers Capture First Ever Image of a Black Hole,” New York Times, April 10, 2019.
PAGE 81 Atacama is also the place where military men: Steven S. Volk, “Chile and the Traps of Memory,” NACLA, June 30, 2011.
PAGE 81 At Atacama, Professor Guhl and an international team: Arthur C. Aufderheide et al., “A 9,000-year Record of Chagas’ Disease,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101, no. 7 (February 2004): 2034–39.
PAGE 83 I knew from reading articles that kissing bugs like the temperature: S. S. Catalá, F. Noireau, and J.-P. Dujardin, “Biology of Triatominae,” in American Trypanosomiasis, Chagas Disease: One Hundred Years of Research, 2nd ed., ed. Jenny Telleria and Michel Tibayrenc (New York: Elsevier, 2017), 149.
PAGE 83 The first pair, located on the sides of the head: Romina B. Barrozo et al., “An Inside Look at the Sensory Biology of Triatomines,” Journal of Insect Physiology 97 (February 2017): 3–19.
PAGE 84 nymphs, too, can transmit the parasite for the kissing bug disease: Catalá, Noireau, and Dujardin, “Biology of Triatominae,” 147
PAGE 84 Bedbugs can harbor the parasite, and in the laboratory: Renzo Salazar et al., “Bed Bugs (Cimex lectularius) as Vectors of Trypanosoma cruzi,” American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 92, no. 2 (February 2015): 331–35.
PAGE 85 In 1995, when forty-two scientists and reseachers from fifteen countries: Felipe Guhl and C. J. Schofield, “Population Genetics and Control of Triatominae,” Parasitology Today 12, no. 5 (May 1996): 169–70.
PAGE 86 According to the World Health Organization, the number of people infected: For this and also information on government initiatives: J. C. P. Dias, A. C. Silveira, and C. J. Schofield, “The Impact of Chagas Disease Control in Latin America: A Review,” Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz 97, no. 5 (July 2002): 603–12.
PAGE 86 children, for reasons doctors do not fully understand, can often be cured: Dr. Sergio Sosa-Estani (head of the Chagas Clinical Program, Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative) in discussion with the author, November 26, 2017; and Ana Lucia de Andrade, “Randomised Trial of Efficacy of Benznidazole in Treatment of Early Trypanosoma cruzi infection,” Lancet 348, Issue 9039: 1407–1413.
PAGE 86 Maybe Latin America was w
inning the war against the disease: Michael Barrett, “How the World Is Winning the Fight against Neglected Tropical Diseases,” New Statesman, August 27, 2019.
PAGE 87 Phil Gingrey, a congressman from Georgia, wrote to the CDC: Cristina Marcos, “Gingrey: Child Migrants Pose Health Risk,” The Hill, July 8, 2014.
PAGE 87 He told an NBC reporter that Border Patrol agents: The Rachel Maddow Show, transcript, MSNBC, aired July 15, 2014.
PAGE 87 Americans turned away buses filled with migrant children: Matt Hansen and Mark Boster, “Protesters in Murrieta Block Detainees’ Buses in Tense Standoff,” Los Angeles Times, July 1, 2014.
PAGE 87 One picture taken by a Fox News photographer: Tony Buttitta (@tonybuttitta), “Protesters appear to have stopped all buses trying to drop undocumented immigrants off in #Murietta. @myfoxla,” Twitter photo, July 1, 2014.
PAGE 87 The historian Alan M. Kraut calls it “medicalized nativism”: Alan M. Kraut, Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the “Immigrant Menace” (New York: Basic Books, 1994), 2–3.
AUSTIN STATE HOSPITAL
I first learned of the racist medical experiment described in this chapter from parasitologist Robert S. Desowitz’s Who Gave Pinta to the Santa Maria? Torrid Diseases in a Temperate World (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997). Ardzroony Packchanian’s correspondence, which I reviewed, can be found in his archives at the Truman G. Blocker, Jr. History of Medicine Collections in the Moody Medical Library at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Details of the experiment depicted in this chapter come from A. Packchanian, “Infectivity of the Texas Strain of Trypanosoma cruzi to Man,” American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygienes 1–23, no. 3 (May 1943): 309–14.
PAGE 90 Since the institution’s opening in 1861: This and other details about the hospital are drawn from two sources: Sarah C. Sitton, Life at the Texas State Lunatic Asylum, 1857–1997 (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1999); and Ivan Belknap, Human Problems of a State Mental Hospital (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1956).
PAGE 91 In Alabama, the Tuskegee syphilis study was underway: DeNeen L. Brown, “’You’ve Got Bad Blood’: The Horror of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment,” Washington Post, May 16, 2017.
The Kissing Bug Page 21
