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.
Investigative purposes
While investigating tropical medicine, maladies, and wildlife along with general exploration was indeed the prime purpose of the Harvard Expedition, Dr. Strong noted two underlying political and economic reasons for the venture as well: The political was that, being a former American colony and at the time the only African-governed republic in Africa, the United States had vested interest in Liberian affairs - acting as financial advisers to the country since the Treaty of Versailles. Economically, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company had obtained a 99-year lease for over a million acres in Liberia upon which they meant to grow rubber plantations to be managed by local workers. Hence Mr. Harvey S. Firestone had a keen interest in the "likely plant funguses, which could destroy rubber trees and cash crops, and tropical diseases, which plagued current and potential rubber plantation laborers." Indeed, while the Firestone Company's supportive role of the Expedition has always been downplayed, reviews made since have uncovered noted and financial and material assistance to the group during their journey. However, it was the geographical element that overlaid the entire venture as Liberian interior was all but entirely unknown to the West - meaning the Dr. Strong and his company had to make the maps as they journeyed; for the current ones, they found, were grossly inaccurate: "The greater part of the country has not been surveyed from a geographical standpoint, and most of the prominent features are inaccurately placed on the various maps obtainable ... The sources and courses of rivers, the heights of mountains, and the situations and positions of towns are usually hypothetical. We found that names of the great majority of the towns and villages in the interior, inscribed on the published maps were unknown to the inhabitants of the regions concerned." As such, the Medical Expedition had many eyes upon it as it would inform not only medical and zoological research, but also anthropological and geological along with government and business views on Liberia regarding the current status of the country.