36 REV. ALFRED T. BRYANT. 



of food. This explanation will appear at first sight farcical 

 enoug-h; but is it impossible that this particular morbid growth 

 in cattle may be of a tuberculous nature, and, as such, capable 

 of conveying- some tuberculous affection to human beings ? 

 European phthisis, we must remember, is jirobably contractible 

 from cattle, not solely through the respiratory, as is popularly 

 supposed, but also through the digestive organs. 



The unhealthy growth in cattle called iXhwala is not the 

 snme as the glandular swellings of bovine tuberculosis, which 

 latter disease is known to the Zulus (at any rate in these 

 present days) as umMhhila. 



It is a notewoi'thy fact that the complaint in natives 

 commonly diagnosed by European doctors as consumption is 

 not absolutely identical in its symptoms with the phthisis of 

 our own race. With the natives the wasting of the lungs sets 

 in first at the bottom of the organ ; in European ]ihthisis, on 

 the contrary, at the top — a remarkable difference that alone 

 may give ground to suspicion. The dui-ation of the native 

 disease, furthei", covers a much longer period of time than 

 does the European variety, often continuing over a very large 

 number of years. Is it that among these African people we 

 are confronted, not only with the ordinary type of consump- 

 tion, but also with a new form of pulmonary tuberculosis 

 called iXJtwala, and akin to, though distinct from, the former ? 

 Personally I have a belief that there are other species of 

 tubercle bacillus infesting tlie human system besides that of 

 Koch, each giving rise to its own peculiar complaint, yet all 

 so similar as to have been hitherto regarded simply as vary- 

 ino- "forms" of the same disease. The bacillus of the native 

 pulmonary complaint has been identified as that of Koch, but 

 perhaps the cases examined were those of real phthisis and 

 not of iXhicala ; or else the closely allied bacillus of this latter 

 disease may exhibit appearances so similar as to escape ready 

 detection. 



Whatever this iXhwala disease may be, its incurable 

 nature is universally recognised by the natives ; but this does 

 not deter the medicine-man from making valiant efforts to 



