TIPPOO TIB AND OTHER MATTERS 



swollen enormously, looking in fact exactly like the 

 thick foot of an elephant. A horrid little fawn- 

 coloured mosquito is supposed to be the bearer of 

 the infection. Shortly before our arrival, a European 

 went home with this terrible complaint, although 

 it is unusual for Europeans to get it. In like man- 

 ner another European official went home as a leper. 

 He is supposed to have got it from one of his boat- 

 men, whom he did not know to be a leper. It 

 seems such a sad, sad thing. The natives suffer a 

 good deal from malarial fever, but the after-effects 

 are not as bad as with Europeans ; they recover their 

 strength much more quickly. There was a good 

 deal of fever in Zanzibar during the time we were 

 there ; it seems on the increase in the town, so a 

 doctor told me. Dhobie's itch is a most unpleasant 

 skin disease among the Europeans, and so difficult 

 to get rid of It is a sort of ringworm, and is spread 

 by the dhobies washing the soiled linen without 

 boiling it, and mixing the linen of people with and 

 without the disease, it all being done in the same 

 water. The disease is carried on to the next person 

 in their clean linen. If only the patient would have 

 his garments boiled or disinfected he would possibly 

 save some one else a lot of bother and trouble. I 

 did not hear of one woman having it, but many men 

 in the hot weather took it. It is a curious disease 

 in this way, that if the patient returns home to a 

 cooler clime, the disease lies latent and apparently 



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