HUMAN DISEASES 543 



against the spread of non-pulmonary tuberculosis, it cannot affect 

 more serious forms of the disease. Moreover, as mentioned in 

 Chapter XIV, veterinary research in recent years has demon- 

 strated that tuberculosis is present in certain types of cattle, 

 especially in Uganda and the French Sudan. Professor S. Lyle 

 Cummins, the leading authority in this country on the subject, 

 holds the view that conditions among rural Africans are not really 

 favourable for the disease. Infected cases arriving from elsewhere 

 tend to die soon and cease to be infective foci. In most parts of 

 Central Africa where timber is plentiful, huts are burnt and 

 rebuilt after the death of an inhabitant. The sun too, plays a 

 valuable part as disinfector, and the comparatively easy life, 

 av/ay from the stress of industrial civilization, allows early infection 

 to slumber without progressing to activity, just as it does in Europe 

 between the ages of three and ten. 



Where much contact with Europeans has taken place, however, 

 and especially where industrial life and mining development have 

 been introduced, conditions are very different. Soon after the 

 War the problem became serious and a committee of experts was 

 appointed by the Health Section of the League of Nations to 

 ascertain the position of tuberculosis, together with that of sleeping 

 sickness, in all tropical Africa. The two reports (League of Nations 

 1924 and 1925) summarize the situation up to 1925 and refer to 

 all published literature. 



In South Africa the disease among mine labourers soon attained 

 serious proportions, and in 1925 a tuberculosis research com- 

 mittee was formed. The committee, under the chairmanship of 

 Sir Spencer Lister, Director of the South African Institute for 

 Medical Research, included a number of the leading medical 

 men in South Africa and had as adviser and consultant Professor 

 Lyle Cummins, who made an extensive tour in South Africa, 

 working with the committee, and was responsible for a large part 

 of the report (South African Institute for Medical Research 1932), 

 a most valuable volume running to over 400 pages. Since tuber- 

 culosis is one of those diseases which must be tackled by education 

 in hygiene, large sections of the report are devoted to the conditions 

 of life in the native territories as well as on the mines, to native 

 custom in relation to disease, and the health services available. It 



