298 NATIVE PEOPHYLACTICS AND REMEDIES. 



animal excreta, by plastering animals which have to pass through 

 a Fly -infested tract with a compound containing ordure and other 

 matters, which is stated to keep the Fly at a distance for the 

 time being. Subsequently, Livingstone was told [49] that the 

 Banyamwezi use lion's fat, smeared on the tails of the oxen, for 

 a similar purpose with equal effect. In East Africa the Galla 

 herdsmen, when obliged to pass through a belt of forest infested 

 by Tsetse, light large fires and drive their cattle through the 

 smoke, which keeps off the flies [139] : according to Mr. 

 W. W. A. Fitzgerald [154], they also adopt the additional 

 precaution of moving the animals at night, and Mr. F. J. Jackson 

 (Appendix C, p. 296) says that he was " told by the natives that 

 the Gallas, when driving cattle to Lamu for sale, always drove 

 them through the forest by night, and that the herdsjiien carried 

 smoking firebrands to keep the flies off." 



The specifics which come under this heading, 

 Native Prophylactics ^^ recorded by various authors quoted in the 

 against and Remedies ^., ,. , "^ 1 1 • 



for Tsetse-fly Disease, -bibliography, are apparently nothing more 



than the nostrums of witch-doctors and 

 other impostors, and are probably unworthy of serious notice. 

 In some cases plants or roots, which have not been identified, are 

 said to be used as a I'emedy [26, 28, 37] ; in others the Fly itself 

 in varying quantities, and sometimes with the addition of the 

 bark of a certain root, is administered internally [27, 30]. Thus 

 W. M. Kerr [97]? writing of the country near Chibinga, Mashona- 

 land, where Tsetse abounded in July, 1884, says: "The native 

 women dry quantities of the Tsetse-fly and pulverise it with the 

 bark of a root, and mixing it with water give it to the young 

 animals, such as dogs and goats or sheep, of which they have 

 very few, seemingly only kept as pets." This treatment seems 

 at any rate to have been believed in by the pioneer-explorer 

 Carl Mauch [50], who writes : " Only one remedy appears to be 

 effective, and that is based upon homoeopathic principles : the Fly 

 itself, taken internally, makes the punctures innocuous, as I have 

 seen in the case of a dog, which after administering this remedy 

 I took with me as far as the Lower Zambesi and sent back again 

 perfectly well with those who had accompanied me." It may be 

 mentioned that, according to Chapman [30], a peculiar breed of 

 dogs known as MaJcoha, bred in the Fly-country " from time 

 immemorial," escapes Tsetse-fly disease ; while Andersson [20] 

 asserts that, "a dog reared on the meat of game, may be hunted 

 in Tsetse districts in safety." * 



* Colonel Bruce, however, found that a native dog contracted Tsetse- 

 fly disease after eating a piece of coagulated blood from the heart of a 

 heifer which had died from it. He also mentions an instance in which 

 dogs contracted and died from Nagana after eating the flesh of a zebra ; 

 as also another case in which a similar fate was stated to have overtaken 

 dogs which had fed on the raw flesh of a bullock, which had perished from 

 the disease (C/. Appendix A, pp. 281 282). 



