808 
GAME AND DISEASE 
Ngar Narua 
The commonest disease known amongst the game, par- 
ticularly on the Athi Plains and the southern game reserve, 
is ngar narua. For fifteen years I have known the disease, 
but it is only wdthin the last year that it has definitely been 
proved to be anthrax. Having something to go on, I have 
made careful inquiries amongst the Masai — who are without 
question extremely clever on the subject of stock diseases — 
and from them I learn that two forms of ngar narua are 
recognised : mbarua, the bad form, which is the more general, 
and a milder form, likened to plague — in that it attacks the 
glands of the leg. This I take to be black quarter. In the 
case of mbarua, the Masai recognise that the disease is one 
which man may contract, and treat it accordingly. They 
say that contact with the meat, blood, or skin, causes sores, 
and, if treatment is not given to these, they often result in 
death. The treatment given by the Masai is to sweat the 
patient thoroughly, by wrapping him in the freshly stripped, 
warm hide of an animal — bullock or sheep, according to his 
size — depriving him of all milk or water, but giving him a 
decoction of some root. The milder form is not looked upon 
as dangerous to man, and the meat is considered eatable, except 
the affected parts. The disease (which is recognised as one 
which chiefly affects young stock) can in most cases be cured 
by copious bleeding, and cauterisation of the affected glands. 
This year we had an outbreak of ngar narua amongst 
the kongoni, near Nairobi, which was proved by specimens 
and swabs to be anthrax. 
In this case we have a clear history of an outbreak of the 
disease amongst the cattle at the camp of the King’s African 
Rifles, at Mbagathi, which was followed a week or ten days 
later by deaths amongst the game in the neighbourhood. 
Upon finding, from the specimens which I submitted to 
the bacteriologist, that this was anthrax, I at once put men 
on to carefully watch the spread of the disease. This was by 
no means difficult, as by watching the vultures a dead animal 
could be at once located. Much to my surprise the disease 
did not spread, but was confined to an area some six miles by 
