New-York tribune., 1908-04-29
TIE SLEEPING SICKNESS.

There Is n strange irony in the circumstance
that the great pestilence which was first OF all
! known or strongly suspected to be or insecure
propagation should be the last or latest 10 pe
seriously attacked by therapeutic or prophyiac-
tic science 1t was more than half century
ago that David Livingstone acqua nted the world
with the habits and disastrous potency OF the
tsetse fy Since then probably millions OF hu-
man beings besides amounted multitudes III
cattle have died from the effects Of Its bite
Responsibility for the propagation Of so-calsed
malaria" including Roman and other paludic
fevers has been fixed upon the mosquito; that
for yellow fever upon another variety OF fbe
same insect; that for the bubonc plague or
''back death upon rat-bOrne fieas, and that for
many cases of typhoid fever-perhaps the ma
jority of sporadic" cases-upon the fly, and
through the destruction or the avoidance or
those insects the rav8ges of those diseases have
been much abated. But the tsetse, perhaps the
deadest of all and first of all to be indicted for
its evil deeds maintains its activities unchecked
How appalling the ravages of the sleeping
sickness" are may be appreciated from the re-
ports which come to Of the fate OF Uganda
the Pearl of Africa" few years ago fully three
hundred thousand of the people of that country
dwelt Cn the shores of Victoria Lake and on the
islands of that inland sea. To-day the number
has been diminished by twO-thirds. Only about
hundred thousand remdiH lue t"o Huh
dred thousand have died of sleeping sickness,
victims of the deadly bite of the tsetse i1y
Earnest and persistent efforts have been made
by medical missionaries and others to COMBAT
the Destience by curing the sick by eXter-
minating the flies, but all have been in vain
and now the desperate eXpedient has been re
solved upon Of seeking to save the remnant OF
the people by transporting them to some other
region which is not infested by the tsetse. Such
an hegira for such q cause Will be unique in the
history of mankind but it is already in progress
and in all probability will be completely ef-
fected and then the shores and Islands or Vic
toria Nyanza will be a more desolate wilderness
than they have been since Speke and Burton
first visited them, just fifty years ago.
Such a CHASTITY record this is more than
ample justification for the official action which
is now at last being taken against the tsetse
and the malady which it pOpagates The re-
moteness and comparative unimpOrtance of the
African lands affected by that scourge have
caused q certain degree Of apparent indifference
TO prevail in place of the zeal with which cam
paigns against ether diseases have been con
ducted. But Africa is no longer negligible. SO
the British government is organizing a National
Sleeping Sickness Bureau, with headquarters In
London and with large funds contributed by the
British and Soudanese governments Also 4
treaty Is being negotiated between Great Brit
ain and Germany for international cooperation
in the suppression of the pest in British and
German East Africa. There is reason to hope
that such action will prove effective What has
been done in the cases Of yellow fever in the
American tropics, and Of mosquito fever or
malaria" at Panama and at Suez and else
where. gives ground for confidence that similar
means Will produce similar ends In the case Of
the sleeping sickness