PUBLIC
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OFFICE
Reference :-
PELE C.O.885
21 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO
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No. 75.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE to THE GOVERNORS OF TROPICAL COLONIES AND PROTECTORATES.
(Circular.)
Downing Street, 20th December, 1910. [Published as No. 11 in Appendix I. to [Cd. 5514], February, 1911.]
No. 76.
WINDWARD ISLANDS (ST. LUCIA).
REPORT OF LABORATORY WORK, INCLUDING SANITATION AND RESEARCH, FOR THE SIX MONTHS ENDING SEPTEMBER 30TH, 1910, BY DR. L. NICHOLLS.
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(Received in Colonial Office, January 9, 1911.)
[Published as No. 12 in Appendix VI. to [Cd. 6024], February, 1912.]
No. 77. CYPRUS.
THE HIGH COMMISSIONER to THE SECRETARY OF STATE.
(No. 20.) SIR,
(Received 11 February, 1911.)
Government House, Nicosia, 31st January, 1911. REFERRING to your despatch "Miscellaneous," of the 16th of December,* informing me that it is not possible to approve of any grant from the Tropical Diseases Research Fund for the purpose of assisting Dr. Williamson in carrying on an investigation into the disease called "Ponos," I have the honour, at the request of Dr. Williamson, to transmit, for the information of the Advisory Committee of the Research Fund, a copy of a letter from him in which he records his connection with the investigations into the disease in question.
Enclosure in No. 77.
I have, &c.,
C. A. KING-HARMAN.
Larnaca, 20th January, 1911.
SIR,
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge receipt of your letter, No. 2619/08, of 30th December, 1910, and to express my regret that arrangements for my carrying on investigations with regard to Ponos could not be made by the Advisory Committee of the Tropical Diseases Research Fund.
2. In this connection I beg to point out that the parasite causing this disease has, since the date of the Advisory Committee's decision, been discovered, and has been shown to be the Leishmania donovani.
3. In view of this discovery I wish to place before you a record of my connection with this subject. In 1900 I translated from the original Greek a series of articles on Ponos by Dr. Yiannakopoulos, of Spetsai, from which I formed the opinion it was most improbable Ponos was a disease sui generis, although at that time I had no suggestion to offer as to its real nature; in 1903, when the Leishman-Donovan body was discovered and the symptoms of Kala Azar carefully described, I felt so struck with the similarity of the symptoms in that disease and in Ponos that I wrote to Sir Patrick Manson and to Major Donovan suggesting that Ponos was probably unrecognized Kala Azar; in reply, Sir Patrick Manson stated that there
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was not enough known clinically about Ponos to decide definitely as to its etiology, and Major Donovan answered that not having seen Ponos he would not care to express an opinion. In 1907 I found the parasite Leishmania donovani in a patient, with Oriental Sore, from Mazoto, in Larnaca district, this being (so far as I can find) the first recorded case of its being found in such a temperate clime. I then once again submitted my views to Sir Patrick Manson and to Professor Ronald Ross, both of whom thought these might give the requisite explanation.
At the annual meeting of the British Medical Association in July, 1909, a paper by me was read, entitled "Is Ponos Kala Azar?" where endeavour was made to take advantage of all known facts available to compare the two diseases and to show their similarity and identity, although the crucial test of the demonstration of the Leishman-Donovan body in Ponos was missing.
In 1908 I was appointed to investigate Ponos in Hydra and Spetsai, but official information obtained through the Hellenic Consul at Larnaca being to the effect that no cases of the disease were to be found at that time in those islands, the visit had to be postponed, and, as it turns out, abandoned.
4. In the Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene of 2nd January, 1911, it is announced that Professor Ronald Ross has received a note intimating the fact that Professor Gallé, of Rome, has found the Leishman-Donovan body in a case of Ponos" in a patient from the Island of Spazzia (Spetsia); and in a leader, headed Is Ponos Kala Azar? Professor Galle's Discovery," the recent work on the subject is recorded as follows:-
(a) Sir Patrick Manson in his book on Tropical Diseases (1907) states that the presence of a pronounced lencopenia suggests a protozoal germ similar to that of Kala Azar.
(b) Nicolle found in Tunis a disease resembling Ponos, and in the liver and
spleen the Leishman-Donovan bodies were met with.
is
(c) Dr. Williamson's paper at the British Medical Association's meeting in
July, 1909, with regard to which it is stated Dr. Williamson strongly of opinion that Ponos and Kala Azar are identical, and his well-reasoned argument, although short of complete demonstration, seemed convincing."
(d) Dr. Graham Aspland, in the" British Medical Journal" of 15th January, 1910, states that he has seen many cases of Kala Azar in children in North China, but not in adults; and mentions that Dr. Lilli Saville, of Tientsin, China, found Leishman-Donovan bodies in very late stages of the disease.
5. It will thus be seen that my suggestion in 1903 is the first occasion on which the theory of the identity of Kala Azar and Ponos was formulated, and that my paper in July, 1909, is the only one in print where the identity was actually argued with the facts for and against ranged in order-the only point missing being the actual demonstration of the parasite from a Ponos patient (a slide showing the parasite, the Leishmania donovani, from the Cyprus case of Oriental Sore being, however, submitted to the meeting).
6. I shall be much obliged if the foregoing may be submitted to the Colonial Office for the information of the Advisory Committee of the Tropical Diseases Fund.
The Honourable
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The Chief Secretary to Government,
Cyprus.
I am, &c.,
GEORGE A WILLIAMSON,
M.A., M.D., D.T.M., D.P.H.
No. 78. FIJI,
THE ACTING GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE. (Received 22 February, 1911.)
(No. 18.)
Government House, Suva, 17th January, 1911. [Published, with the exception of Enclosure 2, as No. 9 in Appendix VI. tv [Cd. 6204].]