7C'2 SMALL-POX AMONGST THI': DA-RONGA. 



v;ith which they anointed themselves, all the thing* 

 which were employed in connection with the scoarge, arc 

 collected and thrown indiscriminately on the large paths, pre- 

 ferably on the places where two roads cross each other, the idea 

 being that the disease will attach itself to the feet of the traveller.- 

 and be taken by them far away. This rite is by no means 

 altruistic, and still less antiseptic ! Perhaps the desire for con- 

 taminating others is not so great as the wish to get rid for 

 ever of the scourge by sending it to the end of the world, to 

 Nkhabelane, to Shiburi, as the chief said in his prayer the first 

 day. Disease, for Natives, is something concrete, an inimical 

 force which must be dealt with as if it were a living being, a 

 lion or a panther, which you expel from your country into 

 another. All the worse for the agent who delivered you from 

 the plague ! 



In former times neighbouring clans used to protect them- 

 selves by closing their borders. Now there are so many travel- 

 lers, women going to town to sell their produce, boys returning 

 from Johannesburg, that it is no longer possible. But let us 

 hope that the epidemic of 191 8 will be the last one, and that 

 prophylactic measures taken by the authorities will prevent for 

 ever the spread of this terrible disease. Some rites, interesting 

 for the ethnographer, will disappear, but this is of little im- 

 portance after all if the blessings of a higher civilisation, hygiene 

 and morality are obtained by the South African tribes. 



Infantile Paralysis. — M. W. Richardson has con- 

 tributed to the American Journal of Piibiic Health* the results 

 of observations made during the epidemic of infantile paralysis 

 in New York City in 1916. He concludes that the epidemiology 

 of infantile paralysis corresponds so remarkably with that of 

 bubonic plague, a disease known to be due to the rat and flea, 

 that it can be stated with great probability that human infantile 

 paralysis is due to a precedent and underlying infection of 

 rodents. Final proof must, of course, rest in elaborate laboratory 

 investigations. 



Nitrogenous Products. — It is stated by Dr. G. W. 



Anderson, in an article on " The World's Supply of Nitrogenous 

 Fertilisers," in the Gas Journal of June 10, 1919, that the 

 production of nitrogenous products in Germany has been greatly 

 promoted during the war, and that, as Germany will not be able 

 to absorb the total production herself after the demand for 

 munitions has ceased, a strong competition may be expected. 

 Although the cost of production has gone up considerably, Ger- 

 man manufacturers were able to write off their plant during the • 

 war. and thus have the great advantage of low capital costs. 



*8 1 8], 564-579 (1918). 



