550 SCIENCE IN AFRICA 



Uele, where the inhabitants grow their own food and are practi- 

 cally self-supporting. A laboratory has been erected at Pawa for 

 leprosy research and was opened in 1 934 with Professor Dubois as 

 director. In the Bas Congo, where leprosy is relatively rare, the 

 FOREAMI have adopted voluntary segregation. Some 500 

 patients, representing about 20 per cent of the total cases, now 

 live in fourteen settlements, and the rest are treated regularly in 

 their homes. 



With regard to drugs, chaulmoogra oil forms the basis of nearly 

 all treatment drugs; it is derived mainly from the seeds of two 

 species of the Hydnocarpus tree growing wild in Western India and 

 Siam. The oil is very cheap in India, so the cost in Africa is largely 

 that of transport. With a view to producing supplies locally, 

 Hydnocarpus trees are being tried with varying success in a numxber 

 of African territories. 



HELMINTHIASIS 



In this category come infestations by a multitude of parasitic 

 worms, which are very prevalent in Africa. The commonest are 

 the Nematode worms, Ancylostoma (hookworm), Sirongyloides, 

 Trichinella, various kinds of Filaria and Ascaris, the Trematode 

 Schistosoma (Bilkarzia), and several tapeworms in the Cestode 

 group. Helminthiasis as a whole is regarded as of very great 

 importance in many African territories; in East Africa it has been 

 estimated that over 90 per cent of the population are infected 

 with one or more kinds of helminth, and frequently as many as 

 six kinds have been found in the same individual. 



Fundamental research has revealed the life histories and some 

 of the pathological effects of the different helminths, a work in 

 v/hich Professor R. T. Leiper's Department at the London School 

 of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has been prominent. Some 

 cause definite disease showing specific effects: for example hook- 

 worm produces anaemia and general lowering of vitality; schisto- 

 somiasis produces impairment of the functions of the liver and other 

 organs, and in serious cases death from toxaemia and complications 

 caused by the damaged organs; the cysticercus stage of certain 

 tapeworms, situated in the brain, is undoubtedly the cause of a 

 kind of epilepsy; and there is some evidence that helminth toxins 



