Look Who it Was Random video

Baruch Blumberg - Different ethnic groups' reactions to disease exposure in Suriname (12/80)

133 views · Published 30 June 2017 · 2:37 · Indexed 21 October 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · Science & Technology

Watch on YouTube

To hear more of Baruch Blumberg’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QedXwz9QEXY&list=PLVV0r6CmEsFyPwAEJ9YaYAsj3ANqc9teW

The late Baruch Blumberg (1925-2011) was an American scientist and doctor whose most significant contributions to medicine include the identification of the Hepatitis B virus. He was one of three co-recipients of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. [Listener: Rebecca Blanchard; date recorded: 2007]

TRANSCRIPT: What I learned there, what was really impressive was how differently people responded to... to exposure to disease. So, we were studying filariasis, both there and back in the main town, in Moengo. And we found a big difference in the prevalence of the filaria in the... in the blood, this... this asymptomatic carrier state, between the people of African descent, who had come as slaves and... and moved into the... into the towns, and then the Indonesians, the people from what was... from Java mostly, and also there was a few Chinese, very few, and four or five... there were only about half a dozen Europeans in the community. And that really sort of... it bore... it bore a strange similarity to the hepatitis business, where you had this carrier state, big differences dependent on, you know, huge geographic differences and in this little town of Moengo we had people living in more or less the same environment but came from totally different ethnic backgrounds and maintained a lot of their ethnic practices, food and all that. So it was a really kind of test tube. But that... that hit me, this idea that people, that were such big differences in response. And even within a population, you know, some of them got infected and others didn't. So that was a... that was... that got into the back part of my mind someplace and...

[RB] And how did the difference manifest, you know, the blood samples?

The difference was obvious from the per cent of people of African origin who were carriers, compared to those of Indonesian or Chinese or White or European. And so there would be a difference between 15% and 2%, of multi, you know, many-fold differences and they were living in the same place, mind you. They had difference practices, but they lived in company... in company accommodation and they all had medical exams before they came up, they...all their entire medical care was provided, so it was something we could study, and they were very co-operative, very helpful bunch. So that was, that really impressed me.

More from this channel