WLRI Projects and Docs: The STPM Story

The Complete Story of
the Creation and History of the
School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine
Loma Linda University
1948 to 1958

[Please Note - This post is a work in progress and under construction. It is the story of the STPM from the perspective of the life of it's co-founder, research director, Doctor Bruce W. Halstead and relies on his memoirs and the stated history of LLU from their website. This post will be updated with input from Ray Ryckman and any other participants with the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine. If you have any pictures, stories, or other information that you can contribute, it would be greatly appreciated!]

The Genesis of
Tropical and Preventive Medicine
Prior to STPM - A Halstead Perspective

The History of Tropical Medicine, the meaning of “Preventive”, the Adventist contribution and the Bruce W. Halstead Perspective.
To Read This Entire Chapter - CLICK HERE

Table of Contents

I. The Colonial Roots of Tropical and Preventive Medicine
[To Read this entire section - Click Here ]

II. Sir Doctor Patrick Manson - Father of Tropical Medicine
[To Read this entire section - Click Here ]

III. The Role and Purpose of Tropical and Preventive Medicine
[To Read this entire section - Click Here ]

IV. Early Definition for the Term “Preventive Medicine”
[To Read this entire section - Click Here ]

V. The Adventist Health Message Contribution
[To Read this entire section - Click Here ]

VI. Halstead’s Background, Influence, and Focus on
Tropical and Preventive Medicine
Prior to STPM
[To Read this entire section - Click Here ]

VII. Summary of Pre-1948, Pre-STPM Era, Pre-Halstead,
Role and Status of Tropical and Preventive Medicine

VII. Summary of Pre-1948, Pre-STPM Era, Pre-Halstead,
Role and Status of Tropical and Preventive Medicine

In order to put into context, the relative value of the contribution of Doctor Halstead’s work, it is important to examine the field of tropical medicine and even the term “preventive medicine” at the time that he launched his career at the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine at Loma Linda, in 1948.

By 1948, WWII had just ended and the U.S. military along with the allied forces, was still fresh with the experiences of waging combat in tropical regions ranging through the Asia-Pacific Theatre, China, the Mediterranean, the African Continent, and the Middle East. The military had encountered the limits and challenges of western medicine on tropical diseases which helped put some much needed attention on the problem.

It can be argued that the military had helped expand the role of tropical medicine, under the leadership of Dr. Chapman of the Golden Gate Academy of Sciences, when Chapman succeeded in developing local sea food as a dietary source to feed the troops. This event opened the door to the value and need for Doctor Halstead’s work on Poisonous and Venomous Marine Animals that followed. With that single exception, the definition and role of tropical medicine had not changed from its inception. That is to say that tropical medicine was still limited to dealing with the existence of tropical diseases primarily for the survivability of the newcomer foreigners in those tropical regions. Prevention had none of the holistic, wholistic, or natural medicine connotations that it has today.

To put into context Doctor Halstead’s contribution to Loma Linda University, it is important to examine where the Adventist church and the school at Loma Linda were focused and where they were either totally inexperienced and/or totally resistant. In a nutshell, Loma Linda and the Adventist church had adopted a solid health message but had demonstrated little if any interest in research into the principals supporting that health message or expanding the development of new health modalities. Consequently, they had no background or experience in grant acquisition from either the government or the private sector.

So for Loma Linda University, Doctor Halstead is the father or pioneer of both research and grant acquisition.

For the field of tropical medicine, Doctor Halstead was the first to expand its role into research into poisonous and venomous marine animals as a source for new drugs from the sea.

He is also the first to reverse the model of imposing western medicine onto indigenous native people. Instead, Doctor Halstead gave credence and respect for the hundreds, if not thousands of years of traditional tribal medicine, as a worthy field of investigation for the possibility of scientific validation of herbal/botanical compounds for new drug discoveries.

In the larger world of medical science, Doctor Halstead is the pioneer and the father of the field of bio-toxicology. Largely self taught on the subject, he became the leading world authority on Bio-toxicology and devoted his life to discovering the secrets of natural occurring compounds on land and the sea that could advance the science of human health.

Even more impressive is the career that began with the formation of the School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine and pioneered these scientific research fields of endeavors, evolved into the founding of World Life Research Institute where Doctor Halstead researched and pioneered, new health modalities in the emerging field of Alternative Medicine.

In this context of 1948 tropical and preventive medicine, in this context of 1948 Loma Linda University (CME), in this context of Bruce Halstead, fresh out of thirteen years as an understudy at the Golden Gate Academy of Sciences and having just graduated President of his medical class; the birth of The School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine is no small incident but was a major milestone, a new beginning, and a turning point for Loma Linda, Bruce Halstead, and the medical and scientific research that followed.