204 SLEEPING SICKNESS, FLIES, AND DISEASE 



((') by screening the living-rooms, 



{(I) by choosing for the sites of houses and encamp- 

 ments places free from flies, 



(c) avoiding fly-infected routes. 

 In all these rational and practical measures, the 

 lines followed are those which we have seen accomplish 

 so much in malaria and yellow fever. And as in the 

 case of yellow fever, so here a great deal can be done 

 by rational quarantine administration. Xatives coming 

 from infected districts should not be allowed to freely 

 travel into non-infected districts. They must be sub- 

 jected to most careful medical inspection to ascertain 

 whether they have the parasite in their blood or not, 

 and those who have must be detained and isolated 

 in properly screened hospitals. The principle of segre- 

 gation should also be adopted where possible. The 

 healthy should live at a distance from the villages 

 or the huts of those who may be suspected to have 

 the parasites. 



Lastly, as in malaria, an endeavour can be made 

 to kill the parasites in the blood. In malaria use is 

 made of quinine, in sleeping sickness the great drug 

 is arsenic in some form or other ; tlierefore arsenisation 

 is a great curative and prophylactic measure of 

 defence, and is having good results. According to 

 authorities like Koch and Manson, arsenic in the 

 form of atoxyl is as efficacious in early cases of 

 sleeping sickness as quinine is in malaria. 



Upon these lines of attack a great anti-sleeping 

 sickness campaign has been undertaken by all the 

 nations possessing Central African colonies. 



