104 APPENDIX. [sect. 



lighter colour lie about three hundred miles from each coast, 

 of which the westerly one, bending round, embraces the Kala- 

 hari Desert and Bechuana countries; and then the central 

 basin is very dark again V 



. . . ,. This is an important subiect even in a mis- 



Airican dis- , * '' 



eases and na- sionary point of view. We have before seen 

 tive medical the importance to African missionaries and tra- 

 vellers of possessing medical and surgical know- 

 ledge 2 . It is well here to give an idea of the direction and 

 extent of the availability of such knowledge, in order that 

 the departments the most useful and likely to be wanted 

 may be known. 



Of African diseases, it is generally acknowledged that 

 fever is the most prevalent and fatal. There are also pneu- 

 monia and other inflammations; rheumatism, disease of the 

 heart, and indigestion. Hooping cough is frequent, but 

 ophthalmia very prevalent. 



Many of our own diseases are happily unknown in 

 Africa. The doctor heard possibly of one case of hydro- 

 phobia among the Bakwains. But he met with no con- 

 sumption, no scrofula, no confirmed insanity or hydro- 

 cephalus, cancer or cholera ; neither some internal com- 

 plaints, nor cutaneous diseases, and but little idiocy. 

 Small-pox and measles twenty years ago ravaged the in- 

 terior, being caught from the coast, but have not appeared 

 since. 



He makes a curious statement about a certain loath- 

 some disease, viz. that it dies out of itself in the pure 

 African race; and is virulent and permanent or not, just in 

 accordance with the proportion of European blood in the 

 veins of the patient. 



A comparison of these tables of diseases shews that civi- 

 lization, like all other earthly goods, is not an unmixed 

 blessing. 



1 Travels, p. 339. 2 See note, p. xvn. 



1 



