SLEEPING SICKNESS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1469, 18 June 1912, Page 5

SLEEPING SICKNESS.

TSETSE FLY BLAMED.

By Telegraph—Press Association-Copyright

London, June 10. The. Sleeping Sickness Commission 1 has : proved that tho tsetse fly, known as Glossina Morsitans, is a carrier of tho disease, as well as the fly known as Glossina Palpalis. Significance is found in the fact that while the Glossina Palpalis frequent a limited region, the Glossina Morsitans is widespread, and therefore difficult to exterminate.

DISEASE TRAVELLING SOUTH. EFFECT 1¥" RHODESIA. The elucidation of the true nature of sleeping sickness is .one of the most interesting and one of the heroic chapters in the history of medical knowledge. Like malaria, sleeping sickness has claimed its victims from the ranks of its investigators. The human sufferer and the fly must both bo watched, and the reality of the danger in spite' of all care has been pathetically illustrated. It is literally good that ono man should give his life for the people. The true apprehension of the nature of sleeping sickness goes no further back than 1903, when Castellani observed in the cerebro-spinal fluid of a nativo of Uganda who was suffering from the disease the minute animal parasites known ,as trypanoscines.' Tivo years earlier the same organism, had been noticed in the blood by Duttou, but the patient in this case had not reached the somnolent stage of the disease; and the connection between organism and disease was missed. Once the. fact had been grasped that sleeping, "sickiiess was a trypanosomiasis, the association of a. fly with its transmission was readily guessed, Various animal trypanosomiases hud been already investigated in which the family Df tsetse Hiss were known to play the pait of intermediate hosts, and the Glossina palpulis was identified as the casual link in human trypanosomiasis.

Latterly, however, sleeping sickness has ten spreading southwards in Africa, e.nd a tract of over 100,000 square miles was last year gazetted as a "sleeping /ckuess area" in Northern Rhodesia. No one, whether white man or native, is alb.ved to movo in or out of this area without permission of the lihodesian officials. 'Iho tty which had been carrying the disease in tiio Congo was not found in Rhodesia, and suspicion then, foil upon the tsetse

flyThe tsetse flv has in recent years spread over areas formerly free. This is attributed to the increase of big game since the rinderpest. It is. therefore, held that to aid in ridding the country of sla-ping sickness the fly that lives in big game must be got rul of, and to do this the big game must go. The territory must be used for either, breeding cattle and sustaining Britishers, or for breeding big game and tsetso fly. It oannjt do both successfully. The seriousness of (he situation is, therefore, apparent. North-Eastern Rhodesia lias in lecant years been a g:eat recruiting ground of native lab.ur for the mines m 'Southern Rhodesia. Jhe shortage of that labour will, (l.eratw, be severely felt. The country will suiter lo«s of revenue from the "hut tax -• ->3. a war from every "boy" who Ins a hut. In North-Eastern Rhodesia this r.eans .fcl3,<)oo a year. Natives within the sleeping sickness area, will only be able to work on farms, but the farms ;n the smith will sutler, and every ?i-ttlor in Rhodesia is estimated to Ming n revenue of ij 10 per head to the Exchequer. I lie Porhisuese have clo--«l then- corder to ritive-; from North-Eastern Rhodesia .r-,iiv to Tetc the natural port (or the shipment of goods to the south-east section of North-Eastern Rhodesia. Ihe alternative route to the railway is also nractii-allv closed, so that transport is almost impossible. Cotton has l.cau crown, and in anticipation of its I.eing reported via T'ete the Portiigu.-SP commenced the roust ruction of n good road, !,„(. this has not been complete:!.. '-he Governor-General (Lord Gladstone! is laki"ii" a wiotis view of the positnn, ami favours strong measures to prevent the sickness spreading.