X"^IIl] HISTORY 301 



Slave-Cargoes mostly consist of Country People, as distin- 

 guished from the Coast People, apparently if the principal Way 

 of Supply be considered. At Whydah more Slaves are brought 

 than on the whole Coast besides ; and why ? The King of 

 that Country, and his next neighbours, understand sovereignty 

 better than others, and often make War (as they call it), to 

 bring in whole villages of those more simple Creatures inland, to 

 be sold at Market, and exchanged for the Tempting Commodi- 

 ties of Europe, that they are fond and mad after. 



" The immediate cause of this deadly sleepiness in the 

 Slaves is evidently a Super-abundance of Phlegm or Serum, 

 extravased in the Brain, which obstructs the Irradiation of the 

 Nerves ; but what the procatartick Causes are, that exert to 

 this Production, eclipsing the Light of the Senses, is not so 

 easily assigned. . . . 



" The cure is attempted by whatever rouses the Spirits ; 

 bleeding in the jugular, quick purges, Sternatories, Vesicatories, 

 Acu-Puncture, Seton, Fontanels, and Sudden Plunges into the 

 Sea ; the latter is most effectual when the Distemper is new, 

 and the Patient as yet not attended with a drivling at Mouth 

 and Nose." 



From this account there can be no doubt that the author 

 had observed cases of sleeping sickness, but no further mention 

 of the disease occurs until 1803, when Winterbottom gave a 

 fairly clear account of the malady as he saw it on the west 

 coast of Africa, near Sierra Leone. Whilst the slave trade 

 was in progress, some of the natives infected with sleeping 

 sickness were carried across to the West Indies, and in 1808 

 Moreau de Jonnes recorded its presence amongst the negro 

 slaves in the Antilles. 



In 1840, Clarke wrote a more complete account of the disease, 

 based upon observations made at Sierra Leone, and during the 

 next twenty years a number of Enghsh and French doctors 

 published various descriptions of sleeping sickness. 



In 1869, Guerin met with the disease in the island of Mar- 

 tinique among the slaves who had been imported from the west 

 coast of Africa. The disease never spread in these countries 

 to which it had been imported, and Guerin was able to shew 



