Soldiering and Sport in Uganda 



islands. Notwithstanding this, it carried off nearly 

 a quarter of a million of the native population, as 

 well as Europeans. 



Recognizing that it was necessary to take 

 immediate steps to combat this unknown scourge, 

 and to prevent the already decimated population of 

 Uganda from being entirely wiped out, the Govern- 

 ment sent out Colonel (afterwards Sir David) Bruce, 

 of the Royal Army Medical Corps, with a commission 

 to enquire into its nature and to report what steps 

 it were advisable to take as preventative measures. 

 It was suspected that the conveyor of the dread 

 disease was a tsetse-fly ; thereupon an accurate and 

 careful map was prepared showing the distribution 

 of the fly known as the Glossma palpalis. This 

 map was then compared with another showing the 

 distribution of the sleeping sickness in Uganda. 

 The similarity of the district on comparison was 

 self-evident. The search for the fly had produced 

 the fact that it was only found on the shore of the 

 lake where there existed thick jungle and tall trees 

 with dense undergrowth. It did not apparently 

 proceed up the swampy river valleys, and it was not 

 found on open sandy beeches, or in the banana 

 plantations, and not even on the coast behind the 

 swamps of papyrus. It was seldom, if ever, found 

 far from the coast line. 



Thereupon the Uganda administration actively 

 engaged itself in combating the spread of the disease 

 by cutting down all rank vegetation bushes and 

 trees by the side of the lake which might harbour 



96 



