liEPOKT OF TkAVELLING PATHOLOGIST AND P K O T O Z O O L O G 1 S T 
BY 
C. M. Wenyon, M.B., B.S., B.8c. 
I’rotozoologist to the London School of Tropical Medicine 
Intkoduction 
The idea of a floating laboratory which could be moved up and down the Nile and its The Floating 
tributaries having been conceived by the Director of the Wellcome Research Laboratories, Laboratory 
Mr. Wellcome, who had already done so much for scientific investigation in the Sudan, fitted out 
with every requirement and convenience the two-decked barge built by the Sudan Govern¬ 
ment for this purpose. The large laboratory, with its two long benches, water taps and 
sinks, with water supply from a carbon filter on the upper deck, ample cupboard room for 
bottles and glass ware, the incubators and ovens, the balances and centrifuge, and all other 
equipment, reminded one more of a laboratory at home than the accommodation one would 
expect to find on one of the upper tributaries of the Nile in some remote corner of the Sudan. 
Such a mode of conducting investigation is peculiarly suited to the upper reaches of the Nile 
and its tributaries, where the larger portion of the population is found along the river banks or 
within easy reach thereof. The floating laboratory can readily be moved from place to place, 
and a longer or shorter stay made at any one spot according to the interest and resources of 
the neighbourhood. Short trips inland can be made, and the material there collected can be 
more fully investigated on return to the barge. 
The advantages of such a laboratory with everything at hand, with solid benches on 
which to stand one’s microscope, with a good supply of clean water, will be sufficiently evident 
to anyone who has tried to work in a dusty tent with apparatus stowed away in boxes, with 
the microscope on a rickety table, and with a limited supply of water. The floating laboratory 
is, as far as I know, the first of its kind; for though boats and other craft have from time to 
time been temporarily fitted out for scientific work, this is the first time that such a vessel has 
been built especially for this pui-pose with accordingly accommodation and conveniences 
which any adapted boat could not possibly possess. Though further experience may 
introduce improvements, those who originated the scheme, and those who were far-sighted 
enough to carry it into effect, are to be congratulated as being the first to introduce this mode 
of scientific investigation. 
The floating laboratory being ready at the beginning of 1907, I went out to the Plan of work 
Sudan in March and reached Khartoum on the 14th of the month. I was to remain in 
the Sudan one year, and to spend my time travelling with the floating laboratory on the 
upper reaches of the Nile collecting material and making observations according as oppor¬ 
tunity arose. It was not the intention that I should investigate any special point, but rather 
that I should devote my time to making more general observations on the parasitology 
of man and animals. 
Work of a similar nature had been done by Sheffield Neave when he acted as Travelling 
Pathologist in the years 1905 06. He laboured under much greater difficulties, having to 
undertake his work in a tent or in a temporarily fitted-up gyassa, conditions which cannot be 
