SLEEPING SICKNESS 
8i 
put a bullet through his hand. He stayed at the 
Catholic mission station, and his black boy accom- 
panied him whenever he came to have his hand dressed, 
and waited outside. When the N.C.O. was ready to 
go, there was almost always much shouting and 
searching for his attendant, till at last, with sleepy 
looks, the latter emerged from some corner. His 
master complained that he had already lost him several 
times because, wherever he happened to be, he was 
always taking a long nap. I examined his blood and 
discovered that he had the sleeping sickness. 
Towards the finish the sleep becomes sounder and 
passes at last into coma. Then the sick man lies 
without either feeling or perception his natural 
motions take place without his being conscious of them, 
and he gets continually thinner. Meanwhile his back 
and sides get covered with bed-sores ; his knees are 
gradually drawn up to his neck, and he is altogether 
a horrible sight. Release by death has, however, 
often to be awaited for a long time, and sometimes 
there is even a lengthy spell of improved health. Last 
December I was treating a case which had reached this 
final stage, and at the end of four weeks the relatives 
hurried home with him that, at least, he might die in 
his own village. I myself expected the end to come 
almost at once, but a few days ago I got the news that 
he had recovered so far as to eat and speak and sit up, 
and had only died in April. The immediate cause of 
death is usually pneumonia. 
Knowledge of the real nature of sleeping sickness is 
one of the latest victories of medicine, and is connected 
with the names of Ford, Castellani, Bruce, Dutton, 
Koch, Martin, and Leboeuf. The first description of 
