PEACTICE OF MEDICINE AND HYGIENE 



kind is syphilis. The public takes little cogni- 

 zance of this disease, but the physician sees it 

 on every side. It affects the guilty and the 

 innocent, and is an important cause of degen- 

 eracy, the paretic nervous diseases, and insan- 

 ity. It effects all strata of society. Our 

 ancestors have had so much of it that in modern 

 civilizations a certain degree of immunity exists 

 and the disease is less destructive and more 

 curable than formerly. Civilization and syphil- 

 ization are spoken of together. It is one of 

 our important problems. Some of the most 

 valuable knowledge of syphilis has been gained 

 since recent observers have found that it is 

 inoculable to certain of the higher animals. By 

 the inoculation of monkeys several new meas- 

 ures for diagnosis and treatment have been 

 discovered. 



At the present time in Africa there is preva- Sleeping 

 lent a remarkably fatal disease, sleeping sick- sickness. 

 ness. In six years in Uganda it killed 200,000 

 out of a population of 300,000 people. It has 

 spread over the whole of the Congo, depopu- 

 lated some of the most fertile parts of Africa, 

 and is spreading up the Nile. It is due to a 

 parasite which gains entrance to the blood of 

 man by the bite of a peculiar blood sucking fly. 



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