THE SLEEPING SICKNESS 161 



the death of Emin Pasha. First noticed in igoi, it was 

 estimated in June 1902, by the Commissioner of Uganda, 

 writing officially to the Marquess of Lansdowne, that 

 20,000 persons had died of this disease in the district 

 of Busoga alone, and several thousands in the more 

 eastern portion of Uganda. At this moment it is pro- 

 bable that the number of deaths in this region due to 

 sleeping sickness since 1901 amounts to more than 

 200,000 ; and this though, most fortunately, the disease 

 has not yet spread eastward from Uganda into British 

 East Africa, 1 nor, so far as has been reported, down the 

 Nile. No curative treatment for the disease has yet been 

 discovered ; nor is there any authenticated instance of 

 recovery. 



The appalling mortality produced by this disease in 

 Central Africa naturally caused the greatest anxiety to 

 his Majesty's Government, which had but just completed 

 the railway from the East Coast to the shores of lake 

 Victoria Nyanza, and had established a prosperous and 

 happy rule in that densely populated region. The official 

 medical men on the spot, though capable and experienced 

 practitioners, were unable to cope with this new and 

 virulent outbreak. The Foreign Office, having no im- 

 perial board of hygiene and medical administration to apply 

 to in this country, sought the assistance of the Royal 

 Society of London. 



A committee of that society had already undertaken 

 the study of malaria at the request of the Secretary of 

 State for the Colonies, and had sent out young medical 

 men as a commission to make certain enquiries and 



1 The disease has actually entered into the administrative area known 

 as British East Africa, but has not made any rapid progress towards the 

 coast. According to a report by Dr. Wiggins, the disease is confined in 

 British East Africa, as in Uganda, to those areas in which Glossina palpalis 

 occurs. 



M 



