Correlations between elephantiasis and thermoluminescence of volcanic soil

Abstract

There is clinical evidence to link non-filarial elephantiasis with soil from alcalic type volcanoes but no other correlation between properties of the soils and endemic regions have been found. This paper reports the use of thermoluminescence to distinguish between endemic and non-endemic soils from Cameroon and Ethiopia. The grouping of soils by the form of the glow curve is simple and a correlation with clinical data is at least 90% successful. The link between the TL and volcanic soil is thought to involve intrinsic lattice defects which are frozen in during the cooling of volcanic material. These defects influence both TL and chemical, or biological reactivity.

After annealing, the TL curves of endemic and non-endemic areas are very similar which confirms that intrinsic defects are the major source of their differences.