Leprosy Mailing List – April 16, 2019
Ref.: (LML) OBITUARY: DR. WAYNE M. MEYERS: 1924-2018
From: Françoise Portaels, Brussels, Belgium
Dear Colleagues,
Wayne Marvin Meyers was born on 28 August 1924 on a small family farm in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. He passed away in Laurel, Maryland, on 12 September 2018 at the age of 94.
He attended the local one room elementary school, then high school in Saxton, Pennsylvania and then to Juniata College, in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania where he had his studies interrupted for two years, by being drafted into the Army for the Second World War, serving in the South Pacific. Returning to Juniata he obtained a BS in Chemistry in 1947. He earned an MS and PhD in medical microbiology from the University of Wisconsin in 1953 and 1955, respectively, and an MD from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas in 1959.
From 1948 to 1950, he studied at the Moody Bible Institute where he met his wife, Esther Kleinschmidt. Esther and Wayne were married in 1953. They have four children and four grandchildren.
His great interest in humanitarian medicine led him to undertake missionary work and in 1961, he joined the American Leprosy Missions (ALM). He first went with his wife and three children to Burundi, where he served as Medical Director of the Nyankanda Leprosarium until 1962. There were 600 patients in the leprosarium, and this hospital was the only one within about 50 kilometers.
In 1962, the Meyers family was relocated to Kivu Province in extreme eastern part of Congo. Dr. Meyers was in charge of the Leprosarium at Oicha Hospital. At the time the Leprosarium had between 2,000 and 3,000 patients.
In 1965, the ALM moved Dr. Meyers, his wife and their four children to the Bas-Congo. He was Director of the Kivuvu Leprosy Service of the "Institut Médical Evangélique" (IME) at Kimpese from 1965 until 1973. IME was a large hospital with around 450 beds and excellent medical services. Dr. Meyers concentrated his activities on leprosy and pioneered the development of ambulatory leprosy services. The leprosy program involved a decentralization to some 20 outlying centers. Dr. Meyers visited remote villages regularly throughout the region by both small airplane and Land Rover. In addition to leprosy, Dr. Meyers treated many other diseases including Buruli ulcer (BU), a devastating skin disease caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans, filariasis, yaws and other infectious tropical diseases. His work with the World Health Organization (WHO) on onchocerciasis (river blindness) helped develop a drug to treat the disease and prevent blindness in thousands of patients. At Kivuvu Dr. Meyers also developed a system for detoxifying the common staple food, manioc root, that used locally available materials to build soaking vats. This method bypassed the need for the villagers to wade in contaminated streams where they would be exposed to potentially fatal infectious diseases (especially schistosomiasis). At IME, he was responsible for dermatology, and also for the laboratory and pathology including autopsies, but leprosy and BU were his main sphere of interest.
In 1973, Dr. Meyers and his family left Zaïre (Congo was renamed Zaïre in 1971) and moved to Hawaii. He spent two years at the University of Hawaii as a professor of pathology. He was also involved in the leprosy research programs of Oahu and Molokai. In the meantime, Dr. Meyers also analyzed documents and reports on the materials he had collected from leprosy patients during his 13 years in Africa.
In 1975, Dr. Meyers moved to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), located at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC, where he became Chief of the Division of Microbiology, Department of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases Pathology, and Registrar for the Leprosy Registry with the American Registry of Pathology.
In 1989, Dr. Meyers became Chief of the Mycobacteriology Branch in the same Department. Technically, he retired in 2005 but still remained very much involved in research studies, education, and scientific writing.
From 2005, Dr. Meyers was Visiting Scientist (a volunteer position, under the auspices of the American Red Cross) in the Department of Environmental and Infectious Disease Sciences, and Assistant to the Registrar, Leprosy Registry, until 2011 when the AFIP was officially closed.
After joining the AFIP in 1975, Dr. Meyers focused especially on the histopathology of infectious diseases. With Dr. Chapman H. Binford and Dr. Gerald P. Walsh at the AFIP, Dr. Bobby J. Gormus at the Tulane Regional Primate Center, Covington, Louisiana, and other colleagues, he was involved in several studies of naturally acquired leprosy in wild nine-banded armadillos and in the discovery of naturally acquired leprosy in non-human primates (mangabey monkeys and chimpanzees) from West Africa. These studies suggested that leprosy was not confined only to humans. The concept that leprosy can be a zoonosis was established. Evidence of zoonotic transmission of leprosy is now accumulating in North America and zoonotic transmission may play a non-negligible role in the control efforts of leprosy, especially in areas where the disease has been eliminated in humans, and making the total eradication of leprosy exceedingly difficult.
Dr. Meyers also contributed with Dr. Walsh to the establishment at the AFIP of a large colony of more than 200 armadillos. Animals experimentally infected with M. leprae constituted an important model for research in leprosy. For many years, the AFIP supplied experimentally infected armadillo tissue to the WHO's Immunology of Leprosy Tissue Bank in England. Armadillo derived leprosy bacilli were used by numerous scientists in their scientific research.
Dr. Meyers developed the Leprosy Registry of the American Registry of Pathology at the AFIP, which contains the largest collection of documented pathology specimens from leprosy patients in existence. The many tens of thousands of leprosy specimens accumulated largely by Dr. Meyers, represent a unique and valuable research resource for leprosy.
Besides studies on leprosy and other tropical diseases such as filariasis and trypanosomiasis, Dr. Meyers retained a great interest in BU.
In 1991 Dr. Augustin Guédénon, Director of the Beninese Leprosy Control Program, informed us of a recrudescence of BU in Benin. An important body of research was then currently being undertaken in collaboration with Dr. Guédénon, the AFIP, the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine, the Gbemontin Health and Nutritional Centre of Zagnanado and a number of Beninese researchers. These studies covered such diverse areas as geographical distribution, disease incidence and prevalence, mode of transmission, pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, differential diagnosis and laboratory diagnosis.
The combined advocacy efforts of Dr. Meyers and colleagues putatively played an important role in gaining support for establishing the Global Buruli Ulcer Initiative (GBUI) by the WHO in 1998. Dr. Meyers was one of the pioneers of the GBUI and his contribution to our knowledge on BU was immense.
Dr. Meyers was a leading expert on leprosy and BU pathology and on tropical infectious diseases in general. The collection of histopathological specimens of BU patients that he amassed and studied has markedly advanced the understanding of the pathogenesis of this disease. This made him one of the leading specialists worldwide in this field.
Dr. Meyers held membership in many professional societies. Among others, he was a former Chairman of the Board of Directors of ALM and served as consultant to this organization and to the Leonard Wood Memorial (American Leprosy Foundation). He was also a member of the Corporate Board of the Damien-Dutton Society for Leprosy Aid. Dr. Meyers was a Past President of the International Leprosy Association and of the Binford-Dammin Society of Infectious Disease Pathologists.
Dr. Meyers was author or coauthor of more than 400 publications including peer reviewed papers, book chapters, monographs and proceedings. These publications include studies in immunochemistry, experimental leprosy, indigenous leprosy in wild animals, BU and the pathology of other tropical infectious diseases such as helminthiases. Until his death in 2018, Dr. Meyers continued to collaborate from home on many papers and ongoing studies and correspondence.
Dr. Meyers has trained numerous physicians, scientists and health professionals in the United States and overseas and has given numerous lectures all over the world. He always made himself available for people irrespective of their degree of scientific development. His wise counsel will be remembered by many, especially the African health professionals, trainees and younger scientists he always supported by positive encouragement. His extensive experience in the field and in the laboratory has inspired and encouraged numerous investigators to follow his example in the fight against leprosy and BU.
Dr. Meyers was a meticulous microbiologist combined with a physician completely devoted to his patients. His wide knowledge of tropical medicine and his charisma were impressive. It is worth pointing out the humanitarian work of Dr. Meyers during 13 years in Central African countries, both in his pioneer village work in establishing ambulatory treatment programs in leprosy and his years of medical efforts among destitute Angolan refugees in Congo. Esther, his wife, collaborated in all his medical and scientific
activities with a tremendous dedication and efficiency. She provided Wayne with an incommensurable logistic, administrative, moral and spiritual support until the end of his life.
Wayne was not only an outstanding collaborator but also a true friend. I remember him as a highly intelligent and humble person, able to keep his great sense of humor even in awkward situations, and being open to the world, an image of what is most praiseworthy in the human person.
With his passing we have lost a great doctor, a brilliant scientist and, for me personally, a valued collaborator and friend of almost 50 years.
The 'original' text (full version) of this Obituary will be published in Leprosy Review.
Françoise Portaels,
Professor Emeritus Institute of Tropical Medicine (Mycobacteriology Unit), Antwerp, Belgium Free University of Brussels (VUB), Belgium
LML - S Deepak, B Naafs, S Noto and P Schreuder
LML blog link: http://leprosymailinglist.blogspot.it/
Contact: Dr Pieter Schreuder << editorlml@gmail.com
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