^OO SCIENCE IN AFRICA 



is to concentrate on one area for a few years, to eradicate as far as 

 possible preventable disease, build hospitals, dispensaries, doctors' 

 houses and roads, and then to hand the cleaned area over to the 

 state service, which should be able to maintain the work with a 

 comparatively small staff. Meanwhile the FOREAMI moves on 

 to the next sector to continue the process. 



Since the organization came into existence its principal area of 

 activity has been in the Bas Congo among the Bakongo tribe. The 

 centre of attack is now being moved to the adjoining sector of 

 Kwango, and the work of building roads, houses, and dispensaries 

 in the new area is already well advanced. The demographic 

 work done in the Bas Congo is considered later. There is a secon- 

 dary centre for sleeping sickness work in the Ruzizi-Tanganyika 

 region, where this disease is rife (FOREAMI 193 1-5). 



Passing to the SADAMI services, among the mission centres 

 those belonging to the Roman Catholic faith are the most numerous 

 and receive considerable government grants. Doctors belonging 

 to the Missions Nationales numbered 12. Protestant missions have 

 a considerable organization in the Lower Congo, on the Upper 

 Congo River and in Kasai. A number of denominations are repre- 

 sented; altogether they maintained, in 1934, 29 European doctors 

 with a number of hospitals and dispensaries. 



The Croix-Rouge du Congo, with Madame Dardenne as director, 

 started in 1925 and was the first unofficial medical organization 

 in Africa apart from missions. It has been the aim throughout to 

 achieve results in a limited area rather than to diffuse activities to 

 an extent which would be too large to maintain, if at any time 

 funds were curtailed. Accordingly the main work has been con- 

 centrated on a small area in the Uele region, where a staff of four 

 doctors and eight sanitary agents is established. The three prin- 

 cipal objects which have been accomplished are the establishment 

 of rural dispensaries, maternity work, and the construction of a 

 leper village, where the inhabitants make their own houses, grow 

 their own crops and are practically self-supporting. 



The Croix-Rouge has established a few other centres organized 

 by local committees. At Leopoldville, where the native town has 

 a population of 25,000 men and 10,000 women, venereal disease 

 clinics have been opened; at Coquilhatville a maternity centre 



