The sun., 1908-08-09
Sleeping Sickness.

have set on foot 30 widely organized
and systematic an effort as that now in
operation for the stamping out Of sleep
ing sickness in Africa. Within the last
eight months the science Of the leading
nations of Europe has been enlisted in
the work. The Investigations and the
medical treatment in every part Of the
vast area affected are more than supple
mented, they are in part directed by
the Institutes that have been established
for the study OF the disease at London,
Liverpool, Hamburg, Paris, Bordeaux,
Marseilles, Antwerp and Lisbon.
In the field the number Of physicians,
.bacteriologists and other scientific in
vestigators reaches the proportions OF
a small army. In every leading centre
Of infection hospitals have now been
established and every convenience for
study supplied. At the moro important
stations, as at Brazzaville in the French
Congo, Leopoldville in the Belgian
Congo, Ujiji and Urundi in German
East Africa and Kisiba and Sharati in
British East Africa, the scientific men
have special buildings apart from the
Acknowledgements, libraries, annexes
for experiments on animals and rooms
for examining patients. Every mail
from tropical Africa brings many reports
on the progress Of the disease, Of the
efforts to check it and Of the new light
and the really encouraging results which
the most recent work is bringing.
This energetic and far reaching move
ment has come none too early. The
fact ID fully understood that the millions
of natives in tropical Africa are doomed
unless this disease can be conquered.
1t is still spreading, and nearly every
month we hear Of 1t In new regions.
1t has at last appeared far north in Ger
man Togoland and the Anglo-Egyptian
Sudan and far south In British Rhodesia.
In the Sudan it is spreading in the
basin Of the Bahr-el- Ghazal, and especially
to the south of degrees north latitude.
Its terrible ravages in the Congo Free
State and Uganda are well known, but
we have heard less of it's more recent
but appalling devastation in the French
Congo, Portuguese West Africa, the
western border Of German East Africa,
the central river basins OF that colony
and the British East Africa and Central
Africa protectorates. In all these vast
regions sleeping sickness has now an
advanced foothold.
The situation is terrible, but it Is not
hopeless. The latest developments give
good ground for hope that a way has
been found and that the giant evil can
be grappled and will be throttled. The
English, French, Germans, Belgians and
Portuguese are fighting the disease,
and it looks now as il science is to tri-
umph in the end.
This hope is based partly upon the
more effective results Of the treatment OF
the disease with atoxyl and subsidiary
agencies. DR.. KOCH was not, as muny
have supposed, the discoverer of the
value Of atoxyl, preparation OF arsenic,
in treating sleeping sickness. That
honor seems to be due primarily to LIN
GARD at Leopoldville in 1908, when he
reported good effects from the use OF
arsenic. THOMAS of the Liverpool
School of Tropical Diseases, after long
and laborious researches, was the first
to apply atoxyl, In 1905. His work was
Of the utmost importance and he had the
merit OF partial success in finding cure.
DR.. KOCH little later in Uganda secured
better results by improving methods Of
treatment, with atoxyl as the basis of his
medicinal agency. But while all efforts
up to the present year seemed to show
that atoxyl was palliative, they did not
prove that it was completely curative.
The evidence now coming from Africa,
however, gives ground for hope that the
effective remedial !. agency has been
found in the present methods of fighting
the disease with atoxy.
We have known since DUrToN and
TODD discovered the fact in 1902 that
sufferers from sleeping sickness are af-
ficted with bacteria in the blood called
trypanosomes, introduced into the
human system by a voracious, blood
sucking variety of the tsetse fly. KOCH
discovered that on the north shore of
Victoria, Nyanza the fly derives this
microscopic microbe from the blood of
the crocodile. The bacteria may live
in the proboscis of the insect for five or
six days until injected into the blood Of a
man, monkey, rat or some other animal,
In each Of which 1t produces practically
the same disease, sleeping sickness.
The latest news from Urundi, on the
shore of Lake Tanganyika, Is that eighty
three patients treated with stoxyl in
the early stages OF the disease have en-
tirely recovered. and most Of them have
gone to work for the whites.
It was reported in Europe up to May
last that atoxyl did not seem to be ade.
quate to save the lives of patients In
whom the disease is far advanced. The
report from Urundi says that seventy
six patients had been treated there in
the later stages Of the disease. OF these
twenty-five had died, and it was feared
that some Of the others could not be
saved but ths majority had greatly Inn