Soldiering and Sport in Uganda 



It has been discovered that the tsetse-fly 

 [Glossina palpalis) acts as host to the disease, and is 

 the means of spreading the parasite known as 

 Trypanosoma Gambiensis, which infects the human 

 blood. 



Some very interesting investigations have been 

 recorded. They have ascertained that certain 

 antelope, such as water-buck, bush-buck, and reed- 

 buck can be readily infected with the human strain 

 of the sickness parasite by the bite of the Glossina 

 palpalis fly; but the blood of these infected antelopes, 

 after careful examination, has failed to reveal any of 

 the parasites, although they can transmit the in- 

 fection to clean laboratory fed flies. Up to eighty- 

 one days after these animals have been bitten by 

 an infected fly they can pass on the infection to a 

 clean fly, and yet up to the present no antelope 

 has been found naturally infected. 



Again, in the case of human beings a doctor 

 has sometimes found it impossible to find the para- 

 site in the blood of an infected person, simply 

 because the parasite lies in the brain. They say 

 that after a time natives living in infected districts 

 may acquire immunity, though I fail to see exactly 

 how this can come about, as the natives are unable 

 to cure themselves when once bitten by the fly, and 

 practically the only step they take is to excise the 

 glands when they commence to swell. 



Should the present Central African Commission 

 on Sleeping Sickness discover that the wild animals 

 harbour the fly, it may be necessary to exterminate all 



lOO 



