Arizona republican., 1914-06-03
LAKE ISLANDS
 0EP0PULATEO
Account of the Ravages of the Sleeping Sickness Which Has Spread from the Congo into Central Africa

LONDON, June "A correspond ent of the Times at NairObi says: Only the traveller who has made a "safari'' right through Uganda, steamng past the depopulated islands of Victoria NyanZa, visiting the new ly-cleared foreshore at Entebbe, LuZira and Jinja, jOurneying down the Nile through Lake Kioga, from Nam sagali to Nasindi Port, and thence along the seventy miles of forest road 1 to Butiaba on the shores of Lake AL bert, can form any idea of the terri ble significance of sleeping sickness. Still to be reckOned an "approhrium medicorum" it has, during a short but malignant regime of less than fifteen years, claimed close on a quarter of million of the native population of the protectorate The irony of the present situation lies in the fact that, whereas we are doing all that, with limited ways and means, is possible to check it's raVages, the natives, on whose intelligent co-Opera tion the success of preventative mea- !
 
 upon our apparent distinterestedness with naive suspicion, but actually re- gard the introduction of the malady into their country as ouf work. See
 ing, moreover. that it really did tra- vel to Uganda from the Belgian Congo by the trade routes opened up by Europeans, there is a half-truth in their view of the matter which is almost incapable of explanation to the native understanding
 The culprits in this case are a group of terrible biting flies than which only the dragon that prey on them are swifter on the wing, exceedingly mysterious in their habits of feeding and reproduction and the vehicles of a parasite, or trypanosome. not like those carried by the "Culici- dae" amenable to treatment with Quinine but flashing through the vic tim's veins like an eel, defiant of all drugs hitherto indicated and poison ing him with a dreadful disease that ends in madness, or, al best, in stupor This incurable malady which
 
 under subjection, to depopulate great CT areas and to prove the grave of yet more medical regulations than , have already succumbed to it's baf- fling mystery, is the curse of Uganda and of the neighboring territories That the natural enemies of the tsetse are few and far between must ha fn t.-lo h., an opportunity of watching the in sects secretive habits and lightning flight A naturalist now studying the problem on the Sesse Islands, in the | Victoria NyanZa, has come to the conclusion that the only native bird capable of capturing it in the air is a bee-eater (Merops superciliosuS), and further investigation of the mat ter revealed one of those mazes of sequences that so often puzzle the naturalist inquisitive as to first t'causes. It seems. in fact. that the bee eater is at once the friend and i foe of the tsetse. since it devours rot ! only the fly itself, but also a dragon i fly (Cacergates) that preys on it; and. as if still further to complicate this cross account, it also destroys q larger dragon fly hostile to Ca cergate. These results serve to il- 1 lustrate the danger of turning a little knowledge to practical account without the fullest investigation.
 The only measure which promises definite results until our knowledge grows from more to more is the clearance of bush on an extended scale and over areas more consider
 able than the limited stretches of
 foreshore at Entebbe and two other
 Ofathe lake ports. as well as between
 tine fifth and fifteenth milestones on
 the road between Masindi Port and
 Lake Albert. These minor operations
 are doubtless of service locally in
 protecting trade routes, but they can have no appreciable effect on the
 suppression of the disease over the 1 prot prtprato panarallV