SLEEPING SICKNESS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 170, 11 April 1908, Page 5

SLEEPING SICKNESS.

0-—- —- ■ BUREAU' IN LONDON. • AN ANGLO-GERMAN CRUSADE. BY TpLEGBAPH—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPTHIGHI London, April 9. -Owing to. failure to : establish an International Sleeping Sickness Bureau, the Government is; establishing .a .national one in 'London. .;. '.y; . Great Britain and Germany are signing a treaty jointly .'to combat sleeping sickness in' Uganda and German East Africa. ■ TRIAL OF COMPOUNDS OF ARSENIC AND ANTIMONY. In June of last year delegates from Britain, 1 Germany, France; : Portugal, ' the ■ Sudan, and the Congo Free State met at tho Foreign Office,' London,; with the object of. devising international 'm'easnres to fight sleeping sickness, the 'scourge of' equatorial Africa. ' Apparently the fruits of-,the conference, except as regards ' Britain.". and '.-.Germqny,. are. not great, as far as international action is concerned. ■ : ' . ; With .a . view, to- combating the : disease, much was done during ; 1907 at tho Lister' Instituto. in investigating the action of various drugs, with the object'of .finding .a therapeutic agent to combat the.. parasites found in the blood of subjects of tho disease.' Mr. H. G. Slimmer tend Dr.- J. D.' Thomson conducted .an .exhaustive. series''of. experiments pn animals. Quinine, it may be mentioned, does' not' affect the , courso, of. the disease. Atoxyl, an arsenious compound, ensures, according .to .them, favourable .action; : it, has, however, no permanent affect In their view, no substance is at present known which alone will cause a permanent disappearance of the trypanosomes from , tho affected animal—i.e., oftect, a' cure.- ' Accordingly, experiments are. being oarried • Out to see 1 whether any combination, of bodies will produco the desired effect (Proe. Roy.' Soc., Sept.' 1S07). ; Tho important discovery. (Plinimer and Thomson) ,was announced, Nov. 7th., that-an antimony- compound—precisely, sodium, antimony^'tartrato—exerts a ; marked influence upon trypanosomes in the living body. An hour, or'so after its injection tho blood, is,entirely,or; almost; free from- tliem, even when swdrming at the time of administration, and in a -few -hours: none ;can : bo found. Bats treated with this-substance had not shown any recurrence-up to GG days,; and were to all appearance well. No local disturbances oro set up by tlio injection of the drug into these animals,, whilo it acts much more quickly than atoxyl and'in verjr much smaller doses. . Other animals are ; to -bo experimented upon; .andi.the effect of. tho drug will bo tried on the human subject.