044 BANTU NEGROES 



disgusting disease known as frambcesia, or " yaws." The " yaws " develop 

 usually first in the feet by the unknown infection (the source of this 

 disease is not yet. ascertained) gaining entrance through a crack in the 

 skin or a small sore. The sores reappear on the face, arras, legs, back 

 of the neck, chest, abdomen, and armpits, never on the back. The disease 

 may run for twelve months or more if no measures are taken to cure it, 

 and long after the disease has disappeared from the body the feet still 

 remain affected. Although Dr. R. U. Moffat, who has inquired into 

 the question of this skin disease, is of opinion that it has nothing to 

 do with syphilis in its origin, it nevertheless yields before the internal 

 administration of mercury. 



Leprosy is not an infrequent occurrence amongst the Baganda, The 

 so-called bubonic plague has from time to time been the cause of many 

 deaths, and it is a disease much dreaded by the Baganda and adjoining 

 peoples. Curiously enough, although it is incessantly talked of by the 

 natives, no ascertained case has ever come under the observation of trained 

 medical officers, and the Baganda are apt to apply their word for '-plague" 

 to any virulent disease which carries people off suddenly. Still, from 

 the accounts of the English and French missionaries and the German 

 authorities to the south of the Uganda border, there is little doubt that 

 in Buddu, and perhaps also in Busoga, the bubonic plague, or some 

 disease related to that malady, exists in an endemic or chronic form. 

 There have been several epidemics of influenza, introduced, of course, 

 by Europeans and Asiatics from the coast of the Indian Ocean. This 

 malady proved very fatal amongst the Baganda in 1899, 1900, and 1901. 

 Pneumonia is a common complaint, and a very fatal one amongst the 

 Baganda. Phthisis is scarcely ever met with among these people, so 

 far as my information goes. Skin diseases of all kinds are exceedingly 

 common amongst these people, who are not, as a race, as cleanly as is 

 usually supposed (from the fact that they are often seen clad in snowy 

 white cloth). The Baganda swarm with lice both on their heads and 

 bodies, and in their houses fleas and even bugs are common. The 

 jigger, or burrowing flea, at one time between 1890 and 1899 caused 

 great distress among the people by the festering wounds it caused in 

 their feet. But the insect, for some reason, has become scarcer during 

 the last few years, and the natives are more diligent than formerly in 

 eradicating the flea and tending the sores it creates. In addition to 

 syphilis the Baganda suffer much from gonorrhoea and its seqicelce. 



Apart from syphilis, the doctors of the Church Missionary Society are 

 of opinion that the worst enemy of the Baganda at the present time is 

 the sleeping sickness. This mysterious disease was formerly unknown in 

 Uganda, but seems to have travelled there slowly from the west coast of 



