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Acute Allergic Filarial Lymphangitis (Mumu) in american Troops in the Samoan Area in World War II¹

In our first report (11, 23) we stated the following beliefs: 1) Among troops quartered in native villages in Samoa, Wallis and Funafuti, there were many whose skins were penetrated by filarial larvae; 2) the clinical entity to which Buxton had applied the Samoan term mumu was common among these troops; 3) this entity was of filarial origin, as Buxton (7) had believed, and the pathogenesis probably involved allergic sensitization, as O'Connor (33) had suggested. It is of interest to review these assertions with reference to the experience of the past five years.

That experience has alleviated the prognostic uncertainty which some of us felt. Permanent tissue damage has proved extremely unusual (48). Much has been written about the psychiatric aspects of the problem (37, 41, 53). The disease had all the terror of novelty, and at first there was natural dread of the possibility of elephantiasis.

¹ The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, the Navy Department, or the naval service at large.

² Comdr. (MC) USNR (Inactive), Pathologist, Kern General Hospital, Bakersfield, Calif.

³ Lt. Comdr. (MC) USNR (Inactive), Mobile, Alabama.

⁴ Lt. Comdr. (MC) USNR (Inactive), Casper, Wyoming.