THE ROYAL SOCIETY AND THE STATE 



scientific researches which it might be thought desirable 

 to institute in that country. A standing Committee was 

 appointed in consequence by the Council, for the purpose 

 of giving advice on matters connected with scientific 

 inquiry, probably mainly biological, in India, which should 

 be supplementary to the Standing Observatories Com- 

 mittee, which was already established at the request of the 

 Government as an advisory body on astronomical, solar, 

 magnetic, and meteorological observations in that part 

 of the Empire. 



An investigation, onerous indeed, but of the highest 

 scientific interest and of very great practical importance, 

 has been carried on by a series of Committees, successively 

 appointed at the request of the Government, for the con- 

 sideration of some of the strangely mysterious and deadly 

 diseases of tropical countries. In 1896 a Committee was 

 appointed at the request of the Colonial Secretary, to 

 investigate the subject of the Tsetse Fly disease in South 

 Africa. Two years later, Mr. Chamberlain, Secretary of 

 State for the Colonies, requested the Society to appoint 

 a Committee to make a thorough investigation into the 

 origin, the transmission, and the possible preventives and 

 remedies of tropical diseases, and especially of the malarial 

 and " Blackwater " fevers prevalent in Africa, promising 

 assistance, both on the part of the Colonial Office and 

 of the Colonies concerned. A Committee was appointed, 

 and under its auspices skilled investigators were sent out 



to Africa and to India. In the case of the third Com- 

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