Guy Henry Faget (1891–1947) was an American medical doctor who revolutionalized the treatment of

leprosy Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a long-term infection by the bacteria ''Mycobacterium leprae'' or ''Mycobacterium lepromatosis''. Infection can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This nerve damag ...

, by demonstrating the efficacy of

promin Promin, or sodium glucosulfone is a sulfone drug that was investigated for the treatment of malaria, tuberculosis and leprosy. It is broken down in the body to dapsone, which is the therapeutic form. History The first synthesis of Promin is some ...

, as described in a paper published in 1943. Promin is a

sulfone In organic chemistry, a sulfone is a organosulfur compound containing a sulfonyl () functional group attached to two carbon atoms. The central hexavalent sulfur atom is double-bonded to each of two oxygen atoms and has a single bond to each of ...

compound, synthesized by Feldman and his co-workers in 1940, which is a chemotherapeutic agent that was determined to be effective against

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

experimental animal Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and ''in vivo'' testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments that seek to control the variables that affect the behavior or biological system under study. This ...

s. He was the grandson of

Jean Charles Faget Jean Charles Faget was a medical doctor born on June 26, 1818 in New Orleans. He is best known for the Faget sign—a medical sign that is the unusual combination of fever and bradycardia. The sign is an important diagnostic symptom of yellow ...

, and father of

Maxime Faget Maxime Allen "Max" Faget (pronounced ''fah-ZHAY''; August 26, 1921 – October 9, 2004) was a Belizean-born American mechanical engineer. Faget was the designer of the Mercury spacecraft, and contributed to the later Gemini and Apollo spa ...

Life

For 25 years he was a distinguished officer of the US

Public Health Service In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

. In 1940 he became the director of the United States Marine Hospital (National Leprosarium) at

Carville, Louisiana Carville is a neighborhood of St. Gabriel in Iberville Parish in South Louisiana, located sixteen miles south of the capital city of Baton Rouge on the Mississippi River. Carville was the childhood hometown of political consultant James Carville, ...

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

. He was a member of the International Leprosy Association (ILA) and a consultant to the Advisory Medical Board of LWM. He died in 1947, as a result of a fall and after being affected by

heart disease Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels. CVD includes coronary artery diseases (CAD) such as angina and myocardial infarction (commonly known as a heart attack). Other CVDs include stroke, hea ...

Leprosy in the United States

On May 7 to 9, 1942, he was invited to the 44th Annual Meeting of the

Medical Library Association The Medical Library Association (MLA) is a nonprofit educational organization with more than 3,400 health sciences information professional members and partners worldwide. History Founded on May 2, 1898, by four librarians, including Marcia ...

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

, and read a paper. In this paper he described the present situation of leprosy in the United States, and the National Leprosarium at Carville with photographs. He hinted important progress would be made in the near future.

Sulfanilamide in the treatment of leprosy

This is the paper written immediately before the promin paper. Toxic effects of this drug were considerable, but among 20 cases, it was effective in 6, and another 2 were also effective but on their road to improvement. One case remained unchanged and 10 cases progressed. In its conclusions, they clearly wrote that

sulfanilamide Sulfanilamide (also spelled sulphanilamide) is a sulfonamide antibacterial drug. Chemically, it is an organic compound consisting of an aniline derivatized with a sulfonamide group. Powdered sulfanilamide was used by the Allies in World War II ...

cannot be regarded as a curative agent for leprous lesions, either of the macular or lepromatous type.

The promin treatment of leprosy

The side effects of promin were carefully evaluated, and it was concluded that promin could be safely administered, provided that the

blood Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood in the c ...

and

urine Urine is a liquid by-product of metabolism in humans and in many other animals. Urine flows from the kidneys through the ureters to the urinary bladder. Urination results in urine being excretion, excreted from the body through the urethra. Cel ...

of patients are examined frequently. Among 22 cases, effective in 15 cases (68%), unchanged in 6 cases (27%), worsened in 1 case(5%), and

bacilli Bacilli is a taxonomic class of bacteria that includes two orders, Bacillales and Lactobacillales, which contain several well-known pathogens such as ''Bacillus anthracis'' (the cause of anthrax). ''Bacilli'' are almost exclusively gram-positi ...

became negative in 5 cases (23%). In addition, control studies were conducted, which demonstrated significant differences between the promin group and the

control group In the design of experiments, hypotheses are applied to experimental units in a treatment group. In comparative experiments, members of a control group receive a standard treatment, a placebo, or no treatment at all. There may be more than one tr ...

. Impressive photographs were included in the paper. The original paper contains the following table.

Other papers

The following papers are based on a Japanese Book Nihon Hifuka Zensho 9,1, "Leprosy" *Faget GH, Johansen, FA: The diphtheria toxoid treatment of leprosy. Int J Lepr 10,68,1942. *Faget GH, Pogge RC: Pooled blood plasma transfusion in the treatment of leprosy. Int J Lepr 11,32,1943. *Faget GH, Pogge RC: Penicillin used unsuccessfully in treatment of leprosy. Int J Lepr 12,7,1944. *Faget GH, Pogge RC, Johansen FA: Promizole in the treatment of leprosy. Pub Health Rep 61,957,1946. *Faget GH, Pogge RC, Johansen FA:Present status of Diasone. Pub Health Rep 61,960,1946. *Faget GH, Pogge RC, Johansen FA, Fite GL, Prejean BM, Gemar F: Present status of promin treatment in leprosy. Int J Lepr 14,30,1946. *Faget GH, Erickson PT: Use of streptomycin in the treatment of leprosy. Int J Lepr 15,146,1947. *Faget GH:Chemotherapy of leprosy. Int J Lepr 15,7,1947. *Faget GH, Erickson PT: Chemotherapy of leprosy. JAMA 136,451,1948.

A message from Faget

This is a message of Faget to leprosy patients which was printed in the Christmas number of the 1941 Star, and therefore is considered to directly address patients for participation in the promin trial.Courage. Faget GH, The Star 42,6,1. July–August, 1983 (originally in the Christmas issue of the Star 1941)

Honors

His discovery paved the way to the complete recovery of leprosy, and many effective chemotherapeutic agents followed. He was honored postmortem at the 7th International Congress of Leprology in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

in 1958 and at the centennial celebration of the Hansen's Disease Center at Carville in 1994.

References

*Betty Martin (1950): Miracle at Carville. *Stanley Stein(1963): Alone No Longer.

External links

photograph of Faget

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Faget Guy Henry 1891 births 1947 deaths American leprologists American public health doctors