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"2. Any salary paid to Captain Harvey presupposes a portion of his services being at the disposal of the Colonial Government; sanction of the Army Council would be necessary for this."
Your despatch* under acknowledgment and a letter from Colonel Montanaro, the officer acting in place of General Trotter, reached me almost simultaneously.
In 1905 my own conviction was that the finances of this Colony were satisfactory, and, although I believe that further improvement is probable, I do not think that expenditure should he sanctioned on the proposed medical research institute at Lagos as well as on a system by which the medical officers in the Colonial Govern- ment will be able to co-operate with the medical officers of the War Department who are specially engaged in research work in Freetown.
4. I consulted Dr. Kennan, the Acting Principal Medical Officer, as to the comparative advantages of the two schemes, and I enclose a copy of a memorandum, dated 28th May, written by him, in which reasons are given in favour of the co- operative scheme. As far as the interests of this Colony are concerned, I think that money will be more advantageously spent upon a scheme by which the Colonial Government would be able to take advantage of the research work done by the officers employed in the War Department. If, however, the contributions from this Government to the institute at Lagos are necessary, I think that such contribu- tions should be made, and that the idea of expenditure upon a co-operative system should be abandoned.
I have, &c.,
SIR.
(4824/7/367 (A.M.D. 2).)
Enclosure 1 in. No. 97.
L. PROBYN,
Governor.
War Office, 68, Victoria Street, London, S. W., December 21, 1905. I AM commanded by the Army Council to acknowledge receipt of your letter, No. 20558/05, dated the 16th instant, suggesting that the Governor of Sierra Leone should be furnished with copies of any scientific reports which may be made by the Medical Officer in the War Department at Freetown detached for pathological work.
In reply I am to acquaint you, for the information of Mr. Secretary Lyttelton, that directions have been issued to the Senior Medical Officer at Sierra Leone to supply copies of all future sanitary or pathological reports of scientific interest to the Colonial Secretary at Freetown.
I am to add that recently a series of articles by Major F. Smith, D.S.O., R.A.M.C., on the ankylostomum, &c., in West Africa, chiefly in regard to military inefficiency, appeared in the journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps, and copies of the numbers of the journal in which the articles were published have been sent to your address under separate cover.
The Under-Secretary of State,
Colonial Office.
Enclosure 2 in No. 97.
I am, &c.,
E. W. D. WARD.
Captain F. HARVEY, R.A.M.C., Specialist Sanitary Officer, to the SENIOR MEDICAL OFFICER, West Africa.
SIR,
Freetown, Sierra Leone, March 18, 1907.
I HAVE the honour to request that the question of a grant from the Colonial Government, to the Specialist Sanitary Ollicer for pathological work, be again brought forward in view of the improved financial position of the Colony and the increasing importance of tropical hygiene and research work. spondence on this subject is attached, which passed in 1905.
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I would point out that this grant could not be expected to cover any special clinical or other research or analytical work, for which an additional grant would be necessary.
I beg to refer to recent research work, which is now being continued on the stock discases of Sierra Leone, a subject of considerable importance to the Colony. A report has been issued from the laboratory, including a detailed description of the pathogenic cattle trypanosome of Sierra Leone, and its probable carrier, the Glossina Pallidipes. (Copies have been sent to the General Officer Commanding and to Colonel Bruce, C.B., F.R.S., at the War Office.) Besides this a good deal of work has been done by my predecessor on sleeping sickness, who discovered its presence in the Colony, where hitherto it was unknown, a fact of serious importance to Sierra Leone, as reference to the spot map, kept up to date in my laboratory. will show.
As the Colony cannot afford a laboratory of its own and a worker who devotes the whole of his time to pathological research work and public health, the possi- bility of obtaining the same for a small grant becomes a very great economy. A very moderate estimate for the above would be as follows:-
£600 per annum.
100 11
Pathologist
Laboratory Assistant
Building Laboratory
Equipment
Maintenance, incidentals, animal house, &c.
11
400
First cost.
300
100 per annum.
so that the first cost would be approximately £1,500, and the expenses after that about £800 a year for ordinary routine work. This does not include the passage money, and leave that it would be necessary to give to a Colonial pathologist.
I have, &c.,
F. HARVEY, Captain, R.A.M.C.,
Specialist Sanitary Officer.
P.S.-I would like to add that I have been in the habit of examining all specimens sent me from the Colonial Hospital and reporting on them for the information of the Colonial medical officers ever since I took over this appointment, and this now appears to have become a custom.
Enclosure 3 in No. 97.
HONOURABLE COLONIAL SECRETARY,
1 HAVE seen His Excellency this morning.
I doubt if the direct benefit to this Colony would be such as to justify this sub- scription with further liability attached. It would, of course, be well if this Colony could afford to subscribe to the scheme irrespective of the question of any direct advantage resulting to itself, but as I understand close economy is at present neces- sary, I cannot see that the time has yet come for making such a contribution. The work most urgently required in the direction of "Research" work here, so far as I am able to judge, is the routine scientific work which is almost indispensable for the proper working of a relatively large hospital such as that at Freetown and the institutions at Kissy.
It is not, in my opinion, so much the laboratory and apparatus that are the difficulty, as the man, with time, inclination, and ability. It seems highly improbable that the medical staff in the Colonial service at Sierra Leone will be sufficiently strong for some time to allow of a medical officer being detailed for even a part of his time for this special work. I consider the proposal to employ the spécial officer detailed by the military authorities for kindred work in Sierra Leone, as suggested in M.I'. 865/05, would be likely to bring the best return at present to the Colony for the amount of money involved. I am presuming that this can be arranged for the sum there mentioned.
May 28, 1907.
R. H. KENNAN.