36 3 
the fish food, must lose, in such a climate, its efficacy, and 
thus it may be presumed that deleterious effects can be 
traced to its imperfect or bad preservation, such as, say, of 
the “herring,” which the natives on the coast and in the 
interior principally consume. 
Dr. Clarke, who was Colonial Surgeon on the Gold 
Coast, and surgeon to the natives, in his medical report for 
1858 has dwelt on the food question as follows :— 
‘“‘Elephantiasis and Lepra (leprosy) in all its hideous forms 
‘prevail. The natives suppose it may be induced by drinking 
excessively of palm wine which has been mixed with the juice 
of the bamboo; but it may, with much greater reason, be 
accounted for by an excess of fish diet. A very large proportion 
of those who were treated at the dispensary were afflicted with 
scrofulous disease, either in the form of ulcerations of the skin, 
glandular swellings. of the neck, or disease of the bones. The 
cause of its prevalence, I feel assured, is clearly traceable to the 
crowded, ill-ventilated and generally foul condition of their houses 
and sleeping places. The walls of most of their dwellings are 
formed of clay, which are rarely if ever whitewashed. Most of 
the rooms are miserably small, damp, dark, and badly ventilated, 
especially those devoted to sleep. In their sleeping places the 
poorer classes, and many persons in better circumstances, keep 
all the dirty clothing not in wear either about their beds or 
hanging from the wall, scraps of food and putrid fish being 
strewed about or collected in corners. I have observed that the 
mortality among the natives is greatest at the commencement 
and termination of the rainy season, and hepatitis, diarrhoea, and 
dysentery are then most prevalent, these diseases being then 
frequently brought on by eating new corn, ground nuts, casada, 
and yams before they are sufficiently dry. The food of the 
mass chiefly consists of vegetables and fruits with fresh fish and 
dried fish in excess, often so highly ammoniacal as to be com- 
monly known under the name of ‘stink fish,’ with land snails and 
land and sea-crabs. But their principal dish is composed of fish, 
and, when they have the means, of fish, fowl, or meat, stewed 
