PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
IC.O. 885
23 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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CHAIRMAN: It does not show a tendency to spread beyond that district. MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: No, it is a geological matter, I think.
CHAIRMAN: Connected with water?
MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: Yes, and the soil.
SIR F. HODGSON: You say that the percentage of black people infected with the ankylostome is rather less than of the East Indians.
MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: Yes.
SIR F. HODGSON: But still it is high.
MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: Yes; that is in most of the islands.
SIR F. HODGSON: I suppose when we dub the black man as a lazy man, very often that laziness is due to the fact of his infection, and that in fact you might eradicate a great deal of the laziness by eradicating the ankylostome.
MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: Yes. You find in many of these islands that in addition to the ankylostome they harbour a great many other intestinal parasites, and some of these parasites that have been regarded as harmless are so numerous in some of The Medical Officers these black people that they are producing harmful results.
report that over and over again; so that in tackling the work there it is going to be a work against intestinal parasites.
CHAIRMAN: As a whole?
MB. WICKLIFFE ROSE: Yes.
PROFESSOR HALDANE: What other ones are present-what other parasites have been found?
MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: I should not undertake to name all of them, or many, because they have some which we do not meet in the Southern States, but some of them are quite familiar at home. For example, the common round worm is one of the most frequently found; the dwarf tape worm is rather frequently found, and the whip worm is quite frequently found.
PROFESSOR HALDANE: That is a very common one everywhere, I think, is it not? MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: Yes.
PROFESSOR HALDANE: It is common in this country.
SIR F. HODGSON: When we say that the black man has a constitutional disin- clination to active exertion, we may be altogether wrong, and it may be due entirely to the fact that he is infected with this ankylostome, which causes anæmia, and pre- vents his being wishful to work.
MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: Unquestionably that is very much due to his intestinal parasites.
CHAIRMAN: You have not discovered so far, any special relation between food and the prevalence of ankylostome?
MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: Perhaps some of the scientific men would answer that better than I could.
DR. SHIPLEY: It does induce the habit of eating earth; they become geophagists, but the organism enters through the skin and it causes first of all this trouble called coolie itch, which the coolies get when they walk about on the moist soil with their bare feet.
DR. SHIPLEY: There was one trick of making the coolies walk through slightly warm tar and then making them walk over sand to give them a sort of sandy sole of the foot.
MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: I saw one big sugar estate in Trinidad where they do that regularly and think very much of it.
CHAIRMAN: Then I presume the middle and upper classes are proportionately much less liable, or at least suffering much less?
MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: Yes.
SIR F. HODGSON: In fact, you asphalt the feet of the black people by following the plan you mentioned a little ago.
DR. SHIPLEY: I fancy one of the troubles with the miners is that they when they come up from the mine they are always putting their hand on the rung of the ladder where the man before has put his foot covered with mud or soil.
PROFESSOR HALDANE: That is one way.
SIR F. HODGSON: That was how they were infected in the Cornish tin mines. (To Mr. Wickliffe Rose): I think you told me just now that there had been some experimenting with regard to animals to find out whether they were infected with the ankylostome, and you said that the ankylostome in animals was not the ankylos- tome you found in human beings and that it was not transferable from the one to the other. Is that so?
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MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: That is so. suppose in the presence of these biologists a layman like myself should not speak of scientific questions like this, but it seems to me that horses are frequently infected; I know we treat a great many horses in the States and with good effect; cows are infected, sheep, dogs, cats, but these para- sites seem to be highly specialized, so that the parasite which infects animals does not. infect man, and the parasite which infects one animal seems to be different from that which infects another.
ceed?
CHAIRMAN: As far as you have gone, does the kind of treatment seem to suc- MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: We treat our horses, and the men from the field are treated just in the same way with the same drug.
SIR F. HODGSON: Does the ankylostome cause death if not treated?
I could not give you any par- MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: I would suppose it does. ticular instances of death, but I have myself seen a number of horses which were affected.
SIR F. HODGSON: I asked the question because there was a constant death of horses on the Gold Coast from some cause which was not ascertainable at that time, and it might possibly be due to the ankylostome.
MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: I should think it would be more than possible. We have areas in the States into which horses are brought from more northern lati- tudes, and it is expected when these horses are brought into these areas from the northern latitudes that they will become infected.
SIR F. HODGSON: There is one question I should like to ask you with regard to the arrangements you are making in the West Indies; do you think it desirable that the work should be inspected from time to time by an inspecting Medical Officer from here?
MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: I should think it very desirable. SIR F. HODGSON: To keep them up to the mark, I mean. MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: Yes.
SIR F. HODGSON: It is a great thing to have an inspecting officer because there
is always the desire to bring things up to what they think will be the inspecting officer's requirements. I asked that question to know whether that has been con- sidered at all in connexion with your arrangements.
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MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: No. I should like just to lay before the Committee what is in our mind to have the full benefit of your suggestions. When we were undertaking this work in the States, we considered two methods of undertaking the work. We said to ourselves first of all, shall we appoint a man to go over the States and make a study of the situation and then make a report and then organize our work on the basis of that report, or shall we undertake first of all to get the work going on a small scale, and then study the work carefully and develop our organization out of the experience?" We adopted the second method. So that we have rather followed that line in the West Indies. We are beginning the work in each case, as you will observe, on a small scale and it is hoped that out of the experience will come more effective methods of organizing and conduct- ing it. In a general way these are some of the things we expect to do. Committee will help to keep the work co-ordinated, so that the experience of one island will be made the experience of all. On our side British Guiana has already asked that we should send on a man who can bring to them the benefit of our experience in the States, and that man has gone and is there now engaged in the work. He will stay there until he has given them what be has to give, and until he has appropriated the new elements in their experience. Then I should hope he might go on, say, to Trinidad and to the other islands, and then come back to the States, and bring to us in the States the benefit of the new elements in that experience down there. As he goes from island to island, he can pass on the experience of any one island to the others, and I should think it might be valuable if something of that kind could be kept up.
CHAIRMAN: Would you like to put that in the form of any recommendation, which the Committee could consider with a view to seeing whether any steps could be taken to associate the Colonies, the special islands for this purpose?
Mr. Wickliffe ROSE: Yes; I should be very glad if we might, in this in- formal discussion, have the full benefit of the suggestions of the Committee, and out of the suggestions there might arise something which we can formulate, and work over into a permanent working method.