SLEEPING SICKNESS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2810, 22 January 1908, Page 43

SLEEPING SICKNESS.

REMARKABLE DISCOVERIES BY PROFESSOR KOCH A special co-respondent of the Berlin Leka'anzeiger has had an interview with

Professor Koch on board the Prinz Regent, en ioute from East Africa. The professor, who is in the best of health, told the interviewer he had been living for the past 13 months on a desolate island belonging to the Sesse group, in the middle of Lake Nyanza. with an army medical sergeant .is his sole companion. Their only means of

communication witii the world was a primeval native boat faohioned out of a tree trunk, which conveyed them to the mainland. Sleeping sickness is particularly prevalent in the Sesse Islands, the inhabitants of which are gradually dying off through the ravage^ of the disease. Professor Koch re-

gards sleeping sickness as an enormous danger to the whole of East Africa unless ex tensive measures are taken to combat it. The principal outcome of Professor KochV investigation is, rays the interviewer, that there is the possibility now of making certain diagnosis of the disease, and of adopting methods to combat it. Professor Koch's

remedy, consisting of subcutaneous injec tions of arsenic, has proved efficacious. Professor Koch has ascertained that there is distinct connection between crocodiles and sleeping sickness. "Whenever crocodiles are found the disease may be discovered, but on'y in places near the banks. The bloo:l of crocodiles forms the chief nourishmer. f of glossina.