© 
DECEMBER 21, 1916] 
We sometimes wonder whether there is not too 
much, standardisation in apparatus for elementary 
teaching. Instrument-makers are, of course, a 
necessity for specialised and accurate instruments, 
but it might be better if schools and colleges 
depended more on their own workshops. 
The work already accomplished in Australia, 
and indeed also in Canada, shows that the move- 
ment towards research methods in industry is 
going on all over the Empire, and it is encourag- 
ing to know that the necessary co-operation, with- 
out too much centralisation, is being arranged 
between the councils operating abroad and the 
Advisory Council at work in London. Sufficient 
organising machinery would seem to have been 
provided both at home and in Australia and 
Canada. The supply of trained workers is the 
_important matter, and that brings us back to our 
educational systems. Will the universities be able 
to give the necessary care to research to enable 
them to meet the demand for trained investigators 
that we hope to see in the near future? If they 
are to do so larger staffs will be necessary, and 
there must be less school-work in the universities. 
There are few university professors who do not 
spend a large portion of their time teaching 
school-work. Higher entrance examinations 
would remedy this evil, but the university is not 
always so rich that it can ignore the question of 
students’ fees. 
In connection with the establishment of this 
Federal research scheme in Australia, it is interest- 
ing to turn to the report of the British Science 
Guild adopted at the annual meeting on July 1, 
1915, and to find that so early as January, 1914, 
the South Australian branch of the Guild had 
drawn up plans for a Federal Institute for Original 
Research which were to be brought before a con- 
ference of the Australian Premiers. The institute 
proposed by the Guild was designed to give special 
attention to agriculture, and to undertake ‘“re- 
search work beyond experimental farming.” The 
Guild realised the importance of studying from a 
research point of view everything underlying the 
successful use of the land, including the well- 
being in every respect of the people engaged in 
farming operations. The list of subjects men- 
tioned above, which the executive committee deals 
with in its report, shows that agriculture in all its 
bearings is receiving attention, and in this respect 
the idea of the South Australian branch of the 
British Science Guild has certainly borne fruit. 
It would be well for us to consider in this 
country whether our agricultural research deals 
sufficiently with matters “beyond experimental 
farming.” Experimental farming in its narrower 
sense can only lead to improvements in detail. 
Research work of a more fundamental character 
is required in agriculture as in other industries. 
The schemes adopted since the beginning of the 
war provide for such research work in connection 
with our manufactures, but it is not sufficiently 
clear that we intend to give the necessary atten- 
tion to fundamental research bearing on agri- 
cultural pursuits. 
NO. 2460, VOL. 98] 
NATURE 
311 
THE ERADICATION OF SLEEPING 
SICKNESS FROM PRINCIPE. 
RINCIPE is one of a group of four islands in 
the Gulf of Guinea. It is 17 kilometres long 
and 10 kilometres wide, and is 200 kilometres 
distant from the mainland. The main export of 
the island is cacao; sugar-cane, coffee, and palm 
kernel being practically negligible. For the cul- 
tivation of the cacao crop labour has been im- 
ported in the past from the African mainland. In 
all probability among these labourers there would 
be cases of sleeping sickness. These in them- 
selves would constitute no danger to the island 
population or to their uninfected fellow-labourers, 
but in Principe unfortunately the carrier tsetse-fly, 
Glossina palpalis, also existed, and sleeping sick- 
ness mortality became so great that the economic 
life of the island was gravely menaced. The 
annual mortality was about 200 in a population of 
3800 (average), so that in twenty years the mor- 
tality would be in excess of the total population. 
How and where the fly was first imported (if it 
were so) is a matter of conjecture, but it is thought 
that this occurred in 1825 with the importation of 
cattle and slaves, and though so far as we are 
aware there are no other records of the fly putting 
to sea, Fernando Po, 40 kilometres from the coast, 
is also fly-infested, whereas San Thomé, 130 kilo- 
metres south-west of Principe, is free from fly and 
likewise from sleeping sickness. As regards the 
distribution of the fly in the island, it is practically 
identical with that of the wild pigs. Neither is 
found higher than 250 metres above sea-level. In 
the case of the pig this distribution is determined 
by that of the oil-palm, on the fruit of which the 
pigs feed; but how far it is a case of the fly follow- 
ing the pig, or the latter finding security in the 
haunts of the fly, is a matter of some doubt. 
The section of the work dealing with the trypano- 
somes of various animals, pig, ox, mule, dog, is 
unfortunately incomplete. A dimorphic trypano- 
some—that is, one showing flagellar and aflagellar 
forms—was found in the ox, dog, and mule, but 
its identity is not established. It may be the 
dimorphic trypanosome common in cattle in 
Africa, T. wgandae (dimorphic form of T. brucei), 
or it may be T. gambiense, though cattle are not 
definitely established as hosts of this trypanosome 
of man. Whether, too, the human trypanosome 
of Principe is a special variety of T. gambiense 
must remain doubtful, as the fallacies of the bio- 
metric method of distinguishing trypanosomes 
introduced by Bruce and here adopted are so many 
that its usefulness is problematical. This book 
gives an account of the results obtained by the 
third mission dispatched to study sleeping sick- 
ness by the Portuguese Government, the first 
having set to work in 1871. Knowledge of the 
subject has increased greatly since that time, when 
indeed the cause of the disease was unknown, but 
the, last mission was so successful in the practical 
application of this knowledge that the disease, 
1 “Sleeping Sickness. A Record of Four Years’ War against It in the 
Island of Principe." By B. F. Bruto da Costa, J. F. Sant’ Anna, A. C. dos 
Santos, and M. G. de Araujo Alvares. Translated by Lieut.-Col. J. A 
Wyllie. Pp. xii+260. (Published for the Centro Colonial, Lisbon b 
Bailliére; Tindall and Cox London. 1916. Price 7s. 6d. net. 
