208 Report 8. A. A. Advaxckmkkt of Scienck. 



time to dispense witli the services of a consif]eial)le number of the 

 veterinary staff", for a similar reason, the conseijuences of the absence 

 of expert supervision and the subsequent decentralisation of control 

 and subdivision of responsibility have been most lamentable. In many 

 districts the disease has got completely out of hand, fresh outbreaks 

 are reported almost dailj^ and, worst of all, the disease has now crossed 

 to the west of the main line of railway, and is now in two places ^\•ithin 

 twenty miles of the Oi-ange Rivei- Colony border. Now the task of 

 dealing with the disease is left more or less in the hands of local 

 authorities, man}* of whom are pinning their faith on the antediluvian 

 resource of dipping in order to check its spread, in spite of the fact 

 that it has been shown repeatedly that dipping is ineffectual, and 

 unless a new order of things is established and unless those resident in 

 clean and in infected areas are prepared to make considerable sacrifices 

 and co-operate loyally with a strung-handed central authority, I am 

 convinced that, serious as the situation is in Xatal now, it will be 

 much worse in time to come. 



British East Africa. 



The outl)reaks of East Coast fever in this colony is another 

 illustration of the manner in which the spread of disease is favoured 

 by railway extension, as in this case the disease was picked up at 

 Mombassa and brought thence by rail to the interior by imported 

 cattle belonging to the settlers. We are not in possession of any 

 very definite information as to the extent of the infected area in 

 this colony, but the disease is there, and unless the administrative 

 machinery is equal to tlie task of cliecking and controlling movements 

 of stock, there is little doubt that the disease will spread there as it 

 has done in other colonies. 



MoliTALITV. 



No definite figures can be gi\en of the mortality which has re- 

 sulted from this disease, but it must run into hundreds of thousands, 

 and it is no exaggeration to say that an invasioii of this disease is 

 incomparably more serious than one of rinderpest, as science has sup- 

 plied us with weapons by wliich the latter can be i-eadily combated, 

 and after an outbreak of rinderpest has been stamped out the infected 

 area can be safely restocked with cattle in a few weeks' time, whereas 

 in the case of East Coast fever, while the mortality is almost, if not 

 quite, as high as it is in rinderpest, the disease takes a much longer 

 time to burn itself out, and when it has burned itself out the long 

 interval of fifteen months must elapse before cattle can be brought 

 into the infected area with safety. 



This Ijrief record brings the history of East Coast fever up-to-date, 

 and 1 sincei-ely hope that the vigilance of the authorities in Cape 

 Colony, Basutoland and the Orange River Colony will lender the 

 addition of another chapter to this histoiy unnecessary. 



