Harvard Medical African Expedition (1926–1927)

The Harvard Medical African Expedition of 1926–1927 was an eight-man venture sent by Harvard University for the primary purpose of conducting a medical and biological survey of Liberia; the secondary purpose being to then cross Africa from coast to coast - west to east - through the Belgian Congo (and other regions) so as to make a comparative study of their Liberian findings. Furthermore, the Liberian interior was next of kin to being terra incognita in the West, there having been no previous medical or scientific survey of the region, nor any recorded expedition into the Liberian hinterlands. The Expedition leader was Richard Pearson Strong (Harvard's first Professor of tropical medicine), with the others being zoologists Harold Jefferson Coolidge Jr. (Assistant Curator of Mammals at Harvard) and Dr. Glover Morrill Allen, entomologist Dr. Joseph Charles Bequaert, botanist and Washington University in St. Louis Professor David H. Linder, bacteriologist Dr. George C. Shattuck, bacteriologist Dr. Max Theiler, and Assistant Ornithologist Loring Whitman (also a Harvard medical student and photographer). The Expedition was a success and, while its "chief objective was the investigation of tropical diseases, many zoological specimens were collected and the customs of the native tribes were studied." The story of their travels back and forth across Liberia, and reports of the diseases found that ailed the inhabitants, animals and plants was published in the two-volume The African Republic of Liberia and the Belgian Congo: Based on the Observations Made and Material Collected during the Harvard African Expedition, 1926-1927 written by Dr. Strong in a partnership with other Expedition members and Harvard officials.