157 



puncture or bite inject a poisonous secretion, sucli as vscorpions, 

 spiders, bees, the caterpillars of Lopidoptera possessed of stingiiif^ 

 Lairs, blister beetles and the like. (II.) Parasitic arthropods. 

 TJuder this heading- parasitic insects and Acari are dealt with, 

 many of which are potential disease-carriers and some recognised 

 as such. The author divides these into two classes, those which 

 suck the blood of living animals only when opportunity occurs 

 and those which invariably suck blood, but points out that this 

 division is more or less arbitrary as the one class gradually merges 

 into the other. In this section 50 pages are devoted to the various 

 genera of biting- Diptera; 30 pages to fleas, bugs, lice and ticks; 

 and 10 pages to truly parasitic flies. (III.) Arthropods as 

 disease-carriers. The third section is devoted to those diseases 

 which are recognised as insect-borne, such as malarial and yellow 

 fever, filariasis, and trypanosomiasis of man and animals, with 

 an enumeration of the insects involved and some account of the 

 organisms transmitted. 



Dunbar-Brukton (Dr. J.). Sleeping Sickness and Big Game. — 

 Brit. Med. Journ., 19th July 1913, pp. 150-151. 



The author gives the following" observations on tsetse-flies made 

 when he was employed in North East Rhodesia, close to the 

 Western Congo border on the shores of Lake Mweru, which are 

 fringed with bush infested by Glossina palpalis. The lake is 

 full of fish and was formerly closely settled with villages. Out 

 of 40,000 examinations made between August 1907 and August 

 1909 only 17 cases of sleeping sickness were found. The hills 

 behind the lake were waterless and the game lived between these 

 and the lake to which they came to drink. Herds of puku 

 remained all day in the bush surrounded by flies. G. Tnorsitaiis 

 was not found except on the low part of the lake near the Kalung- 

 wisi River. This was so infested by G. [jalpaUs as well, that the 

 Government Station had to be removed because the flies came into 

 the house from the river 100 yards below. There was a village of 

 2,000 inhabitants close by and although these people were bitten 

 both by G. morntans and G. p)0.lpalis no case of sleeping sickness 

 occurred in it to the author's knowledge. At the upper end of the 

 lake where the Luchina stream enters, G. palpalis is found, and 

 a village 600 yards away has G. morsitans. Further back from 

 the lake is a village called Lambine and close to it a stream in 

 which sitatunga live and come out in the morning to feed almost 

 in the village. The author says that he has never known a 

 village so badly infested with G. morsitans as this. They attacked 

 the natives and himself while conducting his examinations and 

 refused to be driven away, and yet from this village he failed 

 to obtain a single case of infection or any trace of enlarged 

 glands. 



If the sitatunga carry the trypanosome it is curious, he says, 

 that there never was a case of sleeping sickness in this village. 

 People were always coming and going from the infected villages 



