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vote a sum of money for the purpose of detailing one or more of its medical officers to study the latest-phases of modern research at the best-known centres.
I have considered this suggestion in connection with the Estimates for the forthcoming year, which are now in course of preparation.
2. Public opinion in the Colony would, fear, scarcely admit that in the case of Jamaica the first of the two conditions which you lay down is satisfied, and in view of the urgent demand which there is at present for long deferred public works, I am not prepared to say that any endowment of research would not unduly stint some other public requirement. In any case, however, there would, I think, be little prospect of carrying a vote in the Legislature for this purpose, and under the circumstances I think it scarcely desirable to submit the proposal for their approval.
3. The Medical Service in Jamaica is on a very different footing from that in other tropical Colonies like Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, Hong Kong, and British Guiana.
4. In Jamaica, except less than five staff officers in hospitals and asylums. all the Government medical officers are country practitioners receiving a very small retaining fee (£100 to £200 a year) for certain duties by way of attendance on the sick, the police force, and on statute immigrants and for vaccination and yaws cases. 5. Such officers accept a district intending to cultivate a practice and keep it, and they often become landed proprietors-they do not as a rule lay themselves out for transfers or intercolonial promotion, or for more extensive hospital practice. It is of course very desirable that they should receive the higher medical training which Your Lordship's circular indicates, but it would be as difficult, to induce them to take advantage of it as it would be in the case of rural practitioners of the same standing in Great Britain: their practice would suffer in their absence, their half- pay would be quite inadequate for their support in England, and it would be most difficult to obtain substitutes while on leave.
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SIR,
I have, &c.,
J. A. SWETTENHAM,
Governor.
No. 63.
JAMAICA.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE to THE GOVERNOR.
[Answered by No. 74.]
(Miscellaneous.)
Downing Street, February 8, 1907.
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch, No. 11, of the 14th ultimo, respecting the suggestion contained in my circular despatch of the 23rd of April last, for the study by Government Medical Officers of the latest phases of modern medical research, and to inform you that, in view of the repre- sentations made in your despatch, I am prepared to leave the matter to your discretion.
I have, &c.,
ELGIN
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2. I regret that through an oversight this report, containing much interesting matter which could not be embodied in the General Annual Report on the Pro- tectorate, was not submitted to your Lordship at an earlier date.
APPENDICES.
No. I.
I have, &c.,
F. J. JACKSON,
Acting Commissioner.
RÉSUMÉ OF WORK DONE BY THE SLEEPING SICKNESS COMMISSION, 1905. By Lieutenant A. C. H. GRAY, R.A.M.C.
Our work for the last year has enabled us to arrive at the following conclusions, some of which are new while others simply confirm the observations of previous members of this Commission:-
(1) That in both early and late cases of trypanosome infection, trypanosomes are continually present in the lymphatic glands and can be found there on any day of the disease.
(2) That the subsequent incidence of sleeping sickness is much higher in natives who show gland enlargement than in those who do not.
(3) That trypanosomes are not present in the cerebro-spinal fluid of early cases of trypanosome infection, but can always be found there in the later stages of the disease.
(4) That sleeping sickness is the last stage of trypanosome infection and is, among natives of Africa at any rate, invariably fatal. The after histories of cases of trypanosome infection, noted some three years ago by previous members of this commission, have been followed up. Only one of these men now certainly remains alive and he shows signs of sleeping sickness.
(5) That trypanosomes can nearly always be found after death in patients who have died of sleeping sickness, provided that the examination be made within a few hours.
(6) That native dogs in a sleeping sickness area have been found to be har- bouring trypanosomes in their blood and that these trypanosomes are identical with the human trypanosome.
(7) That there is but one species of human trypanosome in Uganda and that
it is identical with trypanosoma gambiense.
(8) That the treatment of trypanosome infection does not appear to hold out
much hope of success either in human beings or monkeys.
Professor E. A. Minchin, of University College, joined the Commission in April and stayed with us till December. He has already published an exhaustive treatise on the anatomy of the local tsetse fly. His further researches on the relations between the human trypanosome and Glossina palpalis will soon be made public.
The fact that a monkey brought to our laboratory by natives from the Sesse Islands was found to be suffering from relapsing fever a day or two after it was brought in is of interest The animal was probably infected by ticks at one of the camping grounds on its journey into Entebbe.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
PLLC.O.8
885
18 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
No. 64.
EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE.
THE ACTING COMMISSIONER to THE SECRETARY OF STATE.
(Received February 20, 1907.)
(No. 35.)
MY LORD.
1905.
Commissioner's Office, Nairobi, January 25, 1907.
I HAVE the honour to transmit herewith the Annual Medical Report for
• No. 62. † Appendix I. to [Cd. 3306], January, 1907.
Appendices I. to V. only printed.
No. II.
17
REPORT ON EXPERIMENTS CARRIED OUT TO ASCERTAIN WHETHER OTHER SPECIES OF
"GLOSSINA" BESIDES THE
GLOSSINA PAlpalis CAN CARRY THE HUMAN TRY- PANOSOME FROM INFECTED TO NON-INFECTED MONKEYS. By Dr. P. H. Ross, Government Bacteriologist.
Experiments have been continued with the three tsetse flies-Glossina pallidipes, Longipennis, and Fusca. Unfortunately, there have been continued delays and interruptions due to lack of suitable monkeys. I have had to give up using the
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