508 SCIENCE IN AFRICA 



established at Tananarive in Madagascar on the same Hnes as that 

 at Dakar, and another is starting at Ayos in the Cameroons, 

 where a full four-years' course will follow a year's specializing at 

 the Ecole Superieure at Yaonde. In French Equatorial Africa a 

 medical school is proposed in connection with the hospital at 

 Brazzaville, to consist of a training school for medecins auxiliaires 

 and a maternity school. 



In British West Africa the question of establishing a training 

 centre for medical practitioners in the Gold Coast and an auxiliary 

 service of medical assistants was considered some years ago by a 

 Committee appointed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies 

 (Gold Coast 1928). Numerous difficulties were raised, particularly 

 from the financial point of view, and the idea has been relegated 

 to the background for the time being. In Nigeria a medical school 

 was opened at Yaba in 1930. A system of training based on that 

 of Great Britain, was legalized in 1934 (Nigeria 1935). The first 

 two years are devoted to the usual pre-medical subjects at the 

 Higher College, Yaba, and the third to fifth years are spent at 

 the medical school itself, and the African hospital, dispensary, 

 and health department in Lagos. The examinations, held after a 

 five years' course, qualify for registration as a medical assistant, 

 which gives the right to practice medicine, surgery, and mid- 

 wifery in the government medical service. A medical assistant 

 who has been registered for at least three years, one of which has 

 been spent in an approved course of special study, and who has 

 passed a further examination, can be granted a Diploma of Licen- 

 tiate of the School of Medicine, Nigeria, to become registered as 

 a medical practitioner in that territory. The training staff consists 

 of a superintendent of the medical school and a teacher of phar- 

 macy, but a prominent part is taken also by the staff of the African 

 hospital in Lagos, and the medical research laboratories at Yaba. 

 In fact, the time devoted to teaching by 1 he government patholo- 

 gists is a serious drain on their activities in research. 



In Uganda the Mulago Medical School is the only centre of its 

 kind in East Africa, and is likely to remain so for some time to 

 come. Pupils are sent there from neighbouring territories, and 

 already students from Zanzibar and Tanganyika have returned 

 to the medical departments in these dependencies. In 1936, some 



