EEPORT OF TBAVELLING PATHOLOGIST 193 



After a time three men in a boat paddled up to liim, and as he rose one of them in the 

 bows tried to throw the noose over his liead, but failed several times. The next time he rose 

 this native jumped out of the boat with the noose held in the hands and with the arms wide 

 apart, and tried, while in the act of jumping, to place it over the creature's head. He failed 

 and scrambled back into the boat with marvellous rapidity. Nevertheless he made a second 

 attempt and succeeded. The essence of the matter seemed to be to get the boat behind the 

 head as it came up, and the man appeared to be safe while in the water behind it. If this 

 surmise is correct, safety would probably lie in the animal not being able to make a sharp 

 turn while swimming. However, I never saw a proceeding that appeared so foolhardy. The 

 noose was drawn tight, and the other end attached to the cable-like rope in the boat, which 

 was paid out till arrival at the shore, where the crowd seized it and gradually drew the 

 animal into shallow water, wjiere he received many spears and eventually succumbed. That 

 the native sometimes gets the worst of it is shown by one whom I was called in to see, three 

 days' journey the Meshra side of Tonj. He had a severe gash in the chest and had been 

 awkwardly squeezed by the jaws of a hippo. To cure this his friends had made many gashes Native 

 all over him, and he was in the most horribly septic state imaginable. treatme 



Antelope Blood-Serum 



I had thought it wouhl prove useful to investigate the action of the blood-serum of 

 antelopes as a curative for trypanosomiasis, and in England had consulted various authorities 

 as to the best way of extracting blood from a newly-killed animal so as to retain the serum 

 aseptic. I also received much assistance at the rinderpest camp at Cairo. I had armed 

 myself with an air-pump, some sterilised bottles into which to aspirate the blood and sterilised 

 canulas to insert into a bloodvessel. All this was very bulky. I made several attempts, and 

 after some practice succeeded in the case of three waterbuck in cutting ilown quickly on the 

 jugular vein and getting a good quantity of blood. This was allowed to clot with the bottle 

 in an inclined position and carried to camp. The next day the serum was drawn off into 

 other sterilised bottles, and after having 4 per cent, of carbolic acid added to it was corked up. 



Of course, the difficulties were to carry all this apparatus about the place and have it at 

 once on the spot after the victim had been stalked and shot, and then to prevent contamination. 



Two or three dissections are sufficient practice to enable one to get down on the jugular 

 quickly. The serum was forwarded to Khartoum, and Dr. Balfour, I understand, has made 

 some interesting preliminary experiments.* I did not, however, get his letter asking for more 

 serum until after I had left the boats and the apparatus to march across theBahr-El-Ghazal, 

 and was consequently unable to comply with his request. 



I had hoped to take with me from Khartoum a donkey with trypanosomes in his blood, 

 to make my own experiments with antelope serum, but the authorities considered it 

 dangerous to import trypanosomes into a country which had not been investigated for tsetse 

 fly. The above would form a subject for a special investigation which might lead to 

 important results, as the destruction of domestic animals in the Sudan from this pest would 

 appear to be very large indeed. No place of which I am aware gives so good an opportunity 

 as the Sudan for thoroughly investigating these matters, the outside fringe of which has only 

 been dealt with hitherto. 



* See p. 166, et neq. 



(.."oUection of 

 serum 



