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Dr.
Joseph W. Bastien
Joseph
W. Bastien is a professor of Anthropology at the University
of  Texas
at Arlington. Dr. Bastien received his Ph.D. from Cornell
University in 1973. He has done research in Latin America
since 1963. His major publications are Mountain of
the Condor: Metaphor and Ritual in an Andean Ayllu,
Health in the Andes, co-edited with John Donahue,
Healers of the Andes: Kallawaya Herbalists and Their
Medicinal Plants, Drum and Stethoscope: Integrating
Ethnomedicine and Biomedicine in Bolivia, La
Montana del Condor, and The Kiss of Death: Chagas'
Disease in the Americas. He is actively involved
in the use of Bolivian medicinal plants for curing AIDS,
and together with scientists has discovered an effective
treatment for this disease that would lessen by a third
the dosage presently required.
The
Kiss of Death: Chagas' Disease in the Americas is
a result of eight years of research, beginning in 1991
when Dr. Bastien was invited to be an advisor on social
and cultural factors for the National Conference on
Chagas' Disease in La Paz, Bolivia. Dr. Bastien subsequently
received a Fullbright-Hayes research fellowship to do
fieldwork in Bolivia concerning Chagas' disease. He
returned to Bolivia annually to study social and cultural
aspects of this disease and to evaluate Chagas' disease
throughout Central on South America.
 Dr.
Bastiens's love for Andean culture began in 1963, when
he began work in La Paz and the Altiplano as a Maryknoll
priest. At various times during his six years as a priest,
he directed a youth center in a poor neighborhood of
La Paz, led a training school for Aymaras in Penas of
the Bolivian Altiplano. Dr. Bastien speaks Spanish,
Aymara, and Quechua. In 1969, he left the priesthood
and married Judy Wagner. Together they returned to Bolivia
to do anthropological research among the world-famous
Kallawaya herbalists. Bastien has written many articles
and books about their ethnomedicine, especially herbal
and ritual curing. It is Bastien's experience that Andeans
have an ancient medical system that has allowed them
to adapt to mountainous regions with success. Their
use of rituals and herbals can be effectively used for
dealing with Chagas' disease. Kiss of Death is
a testimony to this.
Kiss of
Death and Drum and Stethoscope can be ordered from:
The
University of Utah Press
Salt Lake City UT 84112
Telephone 801.581.6771, Fax 801.581.3365
Dr. Bastien
can be reached:
bastien@uta.edu
Telephone 817.272.3780
The University of Texas at Arlington
Box 19599
Department
of Anthropology and Sociology
Arlington TX 76019
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Mr.
Chris Gates
Chris W.
Gates is a medical illustrator who graduated from the
University of Texas at Arlington with a degree in Biomedical
Communications. Mr. Gates has enjoyed freelancing since
1991 and is published in Mosby-YearBook, Lea and Febiger,
and J.B. Lippencott, as well as in numerous medical
journals. The nature of his work has evolved to become
primarily Web-based. Trained in traditional illustration
skills of the profession, Mr. Gates has adopted the
use of 3D illustrations and animation to communicate
scientific information and concepts.
Mr. Gates
is pursuing the development of interactive 3D virtual
worlds that are used on the Internet. The sheer volume
of data that modern scientific research generates has
necessitated innovative approaches with which to communicate
this emerging information. One example of this is a
Virtual Worm, at kingcaesar.caesar.org/~gates1/virtualWorm.
This interface uses VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language)
and HTML to provide scientists an enhanced method of
visualizing and interacting with complex genetic data.
The
Kiss of Death: Chagas' Disease in the Americas provides
Mr. Gates with the opportunity to work with anthropologist
Dr. Joseph Bastien. Working with an interdisciplinary
approach, The Kiss of Death attempts to cut across cultural
boundaries to provide people from Western and Andean
societies a better understanding of the nature of T.
cruzi's effect on humans. The causes and prevention
of chagas are at least as relevant as the biological
aspects of the disease. Mr. Gates hopes that this website
contributes to our understanding of how to safely coexist
with T. cruzi.
Mr. Gates
can be reached:
gates2@onramp.net
Telephone 817.275.1462, fax 817.261.7151
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