88 V. JANUARY TO JUNE, 1914 
The worst sores of all are the tropical eating sores 
{ulcus fhagedenicum tropicuni), which spread in all 
directions. Not infrequently the whole leg surface is 
one single sore, in which the sinews and bones show like 
white islands. The pain is frightful, and the smell is 
such that no one can stay near the patient for any 
length of time. The sufferers are placed in a hut by 
themselves, and have their food brought to them ; there 
they gradually waste away and die after terrible 
sufferings. This most horrible of all the different sores 
is very common on the Ogowe, and merely to disinfect 
and bandage does no good. The sufferer must be put 
under an anaesthetic and the sore carefully scraped right 
down to the sound tissue, during which operation blood 
flows in streams. The sore is then bathed with a 
solution of permanganate of potash, but a careful 
inspection must be made every day so as to detect any 
new purulent centre that may show itself, as this must 
at once be scraped out like the others. It is weeks, 
perhaps months, before the sore is healed, and it will 
use up half a case of bandages. What a sum it costs 
us, too, to feed the patient for so long ! But what joy 
when — limping, indeed, for the healed wounds leave 
the foot permanently deformed, but rejoicing at his 
freedom from the old pain and stench — he steps into 
the canoe for the journey home ! 
* 
The lepers are another class of sick people who give 
one much trouble. This disease is caused by a bacillus 
which is closely allied to that of tuberculosis, and this 
was discovered in 1871 by a Norwegian doctor, Hansen 
by name. Isolation, which is always insisted on where 
