THE SLEEPING SICKNESS

Evening Star, Issue 13001, 21 December 1906, Page 6

THE SLEEPING SICKNESS

PROFESSOR KOCH IN AFRICA. ' Press Association—By ielegraph— Copyright. LONDON, December 20. Professor Koch, the • eminent bacteriologist," assisted by. two English, doctors, is curing thousands of'caees of sleeping sickness, in the Victoria Nyanza district by means of a speafio known as atoxyl, which exterminates the germs of the disease in the brood within aix hours. [ln the course of a lecture rfetivered hefore the British Association in South Africa in September, 1905, Mr A. E. Slripley, F.R.B. (Cambridge", referred to the Bleeping sickness. He said: "The report of Colonel Bruce, recently issued, showed that the sleeping sickness which devastated Central Africa, from the west coast to Jie east ws« also conveyed by a species of tse-isc fly. Writing over 100 years ago of Sierra Leone, Winterbottom mentioned the disease. ' '.the Africans,' he said, ' are very subject to' a epecieS of lethargy which they are very much afraid of, as it proves fatal in every instance." Early last century it was recorded in Brazil and the- West Indies ; and in all probability the deaths which our slave-owning ancestors used to attribute to a severe form: of home-sick-iiefs, or even to a broken heart, were in reality caused by sleeping sickness. The severity of "the disease,, which always terminated fatally, was shown by the fait that in a single island (Buvuma) the population had recently been reduced by it from 32,000 to 8.000. whilst whole districts bad almost been depopulated. In one year the deaths in the region of Bosoga reached a total of 20,000; and it was calculated, 'although the disease war? only noticed in Uganda for the fiist time in 1901. that by the middle of 1904 100,000 people had been killed by it. The knowledge of the limited districts which the fly frequented, ajid of tb» habits of this species of fly, would suggest preventive measure*; and the brilliant research of Colorcl Brace and his colleagues, Captain Grieg and Dr Nabarro, might yet .we (lie mucli.-trird African continent from the most fatal of recent diseases."]