Antrycide

Britain may build a new African empire because of a discovery announced last week: a new synthetic drug called Antrycide, to cure and prevent trypanosomiasis (related to sleeping sickness) in cattle. The drug will be used in a vast area of Africa, larger than the U.S., where profitable ranching has long been impossible because of tsetse flies which carry the wiggly protozoan parasite of trypanosomiasis to domestic cattle, horses and hogs.

Fighting trypanosomiasis by attacking the flies with insecticides has never been wholly effective. Some flies always survived and quickly re-established the fly population. As a result, the whole great African area (including Kenya, Uganda and Sudan) has only about 16 million head of scrubby, inferior cattle. Even these hardy beasts often die of the disease. David Rees-Williams, British Undersecretary for Colonies, says of Antrycide: "It will enable Africa to carry much more cattle than Argentina, where there are now about 33 million head."

Antrycide was developed by two young chemists, Drs. D. Garnet Davey, 36, and 39-year-old Francis Henry Swinden Curd (who was killed in a railway accident last November). In 1944 they were working on Paludrine, a drug for malaria. One of the compounds they tested proved slightly effective against trypanosomiasis. Three more years of work produced a related drug that did the job, with complete success on mice.

Early last year a team of chemists, biologists and veterinarians set out for Africa to attack the trypanosomes in their native stronghold. A single dose cured cattle infected with T. congolense and T. vivax, two worst forms of the disease. It also worked well against other forms in cattle, horses, dogs, hogs and camels. Healthy animals appear immunized against infection for as much as six months.

Some authorities on trypanosomiasis believe that Antrycide has not been tested enough, but last week all food-conscious Britain was cheering the empire-building drug. The Colonial Office predicted that African cattle raising will show positive improvement in four years and large-scale development in ten years. Said the Daily Mirror: "British Africa can become the largest meat-producing area in the world."

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