Ashcroft M T
Trop Geogr Med. 1978 Mar;30(1):5-21.
The West Indies, and associated parts of the Caribbean area, are extremely diverse and afford interesting examples for the study of geographical medicine. Short accounts are given of some conditions whose aetiologies have been relatively recently clarified, including vomiting sickness of Jamaica, veno-occlusive disease of Jamaica, blackfat pulmonary fibrosis of Guyana, and epidemic acute glomerulonephritis of Trinidad. The aetiology of tropical sprue, which is common in Puerto Rico and absent from Jamaica remains to be explained although a hypothesis has been put forward. Further work is needed to establish the geographical distribution of idiopathic cardiomegaly and the spinal neuropathies and associated syndromes of retrobulbar neuritis and sensorineural deafness before their aetiologies can be understood.
西印度群岛以及加勒比地区的相关部分极为多样，为地理医学研究提供了有趣的实例。本文简要介绍了一些病因最近才得以阐明的病症，包括牙买加的呕吐病、牙买加的静脉闭塞性疾病、圭亚那的黑脂肺纤维化以及特立尼达的流行性急性肾小球肾炎。热带口炎性腹泻在波多黎各很常见，而在牙买加却不存在，尽管已经提出了一种假说，但其病因仍有待解释。在特发性心脏肥大、脊髓神经病以及球后视神经炎和感音神经性耳聋相关综合征的病因得到理解之前，还需要进一步开展工作来确定它们的地理分布。
