H. L. Duke 
417 
II. THE ASSUMPTIONS ON WHICH Sir H. HESKETH BELL BASED 
HIS SUPPRESSIVE MEASURES. 
In November, 1906, as a result of the investigations which were carried out 
by the various Commissions appointed for the purpose, H.M. Commissioner 
and Acting Governor Sir H. Hesketh Bell put forward a scheme for dealing 
with the disease. 
He assumed that, unless something drastic was done to check the spread 
of the epidemic, the whole population of the fly area would die of sleeping 
sickness. He based his measures mainly upon the following assumptions: 
(1) “That there are no authenticated instances of the transmission of the 
disease from sick persons to healthy, in districts where the tsetse fly is not 
found” (l). 
(2) “That the presence of even a single diseased person in a locality 
infested by tsetse flies may entail the infection of the whole community” (l). 
(3) That “the disease, so far, appears to be incurable”(l). 
(4) That “the tsetse fly was the indispensable link in the chain of in¬ 
fection, and that only by the elimination of that link could the spread of the 
disease be checked” (2). 
(5) That an enormous percentage of the population of the fly zone was 
already infected with the disease and that on certain islands the entire popu¬ 
lation had disappeared (3). 
(6) That “the decrease in the number of deaths in the kingdom of Buganda 
since 1903 is not believed to have been due to any diminution in the virulence 
of the disease, but simply to the reduction of possible victims in the infected 
areas” (4). 
The order of arrangement of the above six assumptions has no reference to 
Sir H. Hesketh Bell’s reports, nor to order of precedence. 
He aimed at extermination of the disease as the extermination of the fly 
appeared to be unobtainable. His measures entailed the removal inland of the 
whole surviving populations of a two mile zone of the mainland shore line and 
of the islands, away from all possible contact with the fly. At the same time 
those actually suffering from the disease were to be segregated in various 
camps throughout Buganda and Busoga, also outside the fly zone. 
The segregation of the sick was commenced in December, 1906(5). By the 
end of 1907 the mainland population had been removed inland, and, from the 
German border on the west to the Ripon Falls on the east, the coastal zone to 
a depth of two miles had been cleared of inhabitants. 
During 1908 similar measures were completed in Busoga and in 1909 the 
islanders were removed from Buvuma and the Sesse group. It was hoped 
that after the disappearance of the disease, which was expected to follow these 
measures, the surviving populations would be able to return to their old 
homes. 
