PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TLC.O. 885
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ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
23 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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SIR F. HODGSON: There is nothing of the sort at the present time in the West Indies and it would be useful to have them.
THE SECRETARY: There have been a good number of leaflets circulated in the West Indies; in nearly all the Colonies in the schools there is some leaflet or another. If
you take St. Lucia, where 95 per cent. of the children speak a French patois, that means a special publication.
MR. GRINDLE: I think the drawing up of leaflets might be left to the Medical Officers to send after they have had a quarter or two's experience of the habits of the people; they would be in a much better position to do it than anyone else outside, perhaps.
CHAIRMAN: But as far as regards these parasites the substance of the warnings would be similar.
MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: That is universal, but we find in the States that the supplementing of these books by local material peculiarly adapted to the State is extremely valuable. The more local you can make your material the more effective it is.
CHAIRMAN: You mean that the manual for Louisiana would not necessarily do for Virginia.
MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: No, it is different.
CHAIRMAN: With regard to Mr. Rose's future programme I think we might invite suggestions about the journey he is going to take. Mr. Rose might first tell us what are the doubts in his mind, so that we may, as far as we can, inform him about them.
MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: I am proposing now to go to Egypt and Ceylon and the Straits Settlements. I am going without any programme in my mind. The pur- pose of this visit on my part is simply to get in touch with these countries and make a preliminary survey and find out whether it is to be worth while to formu- late any working programme. I am not at all sure whether in any case it will be feasible. I should be very glad to have any suggestion concerning any one of these places.
CHAIRMAN: We will begin with Ceylon and if anybody here can speak about Egypt we can take that afterwards.
SIR HENRY MCCALLUM: As regards the work in Ceylon generally, the class of work is something different between the Tamils and the Cingalese. As I was say ing, we found that the whole of the Tamil immigrants who come into the island (and they amount to a very large number every year) practically all have this disease on them, so much so that a committee I appointed to go into the matter recommended that the whole of the immigrants should be put under special treatment with thymol and beta-naphthol on their arrival at the estates, so that they have a general clear- ing out, so as to make things straightforward. That is provided for by legislation You will find that now, and there is no danger at all in carrying out the scheme.
They are not the planters are quite good fellows. You must not try to drive them. to be driven, but they are easily led, and if you work at them through the district surgeons, who generally command respect throughout the island, you will find the planters will give you every assistance. They take a great deal of interest in it, and are quite prepared to spend money and to charge it to the estates, not perhaps so much at the present moment, because of the great fall in rubber, but you will find them a very good set of fellows, who will give you every help, which I think will be a great comfort to you.
We have found that this disease has spread very much to the Ceylonese by the C'evlonese taking part in the work on the estates. They do a good deal of work now. particularly on the rubber estates, in the way of tapping and so on, and there is no doubt they have acquired the disease from the great amount of filth which is on the estates. We are doing what we can there in the way of sanitation, and a good deal by water supply, and a great deal by keeping the neighbourhood of the lines quite clear. When I left there I was trying to persuade them to give up every alternate row of tea within 100 yards of the coolie lines, and to establish there It is no good with a Tamil plain field latrines, just the tripod with a bar across. giving him an elaborate latrine. They never provide round holes for natives, and a round hole was never meant for a native, and if you provide these squat plates they will not use them. We were hoping, by introducing these field latrines, keeping them filled with dry earth, and filling them in, we might move them on to another field and gradually run these rows over the lines until you got back again in two or three years' time.
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MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: Do they use those readily? SIR HENRY MCCALLUM: Much more readily. I told you about the Buddh- Now it has always ism, and I have also mentioned about the treatment on entry. occurred to me that in any campaign we have against this disease Southern India is the place to which particular attention ought to be paid, because that is the country, and it is the field from which we get practically all our immigrant labour, both for Ceylon and the Malay States, and Straits Settlements. There is no labour drawn from Calcutta at all. That is why I asked that question about the West Indies, whether there was anything done to differentiate between Calcutta and Southern India. Southern India is evidently full of it; every village seems full of it, and therefore (I am only speaking as a layman) it seems to me you should tackle the fountain head, where the disease comes from. Once the system is intro- duced of remedial measures in Ceylon, we should keep them remedial more than That is one rea- preventive if we can prevent these coolies coming in getting it.
son why every coolie is now treated with thymol directly he arrives, so that he is supposed to be free from infection.
the low You will find that the disease is a great deal more prevalent in countries than on the hills. Going round the hospitals I saw a great many more Possibly cases from certain of the lower districts than from the upper districts. you will find that your researches and remedial measures will be confined in the first place to one or two provinces only. For instance, in the Kandy Province there As far as I know, you do not find the disease very is a great deal of work to do. much in the dry north amongst the Tamils; it is there, but it is not so prevalent as in the Southern Provinces. I should suggest before you arrive out there that the Medical Officer should have maps prepared for you with degrees of intensity all marked, shewing the districts where the disease is most prevalent. That is easily done in the office there, and you will have the map to go upon, and you will see their own where there is slight infection, and where there is more, as far as investigations have gone, because that is going on now, although not on the scale your Commission is prepared to undertake.
As to the
The treatment of the children in schools is being taken in hand. coolie lines, have already said that instructions have been given that the coolie lines shall be thoroughly taken in hand, and, as far as practicable, that the coolies shall be niade to keep to the latrines. They are only simple latrines.
MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: I suppose you mean that there is a trench, or hole in the ground.
SIR HENRY MCCALLUM: There are trenches with a tripod put up, and a bar across. The sweeper is supposed to come round every day and to remove any fæces there may be about not deposited in the proper place. It is impossible to bring it home as to who the culprit is. It is very important in adopting remedial measures, and in taking any step with the new-arrived coolie, not to frighten him. If you frighten him by any measures he does not understand, which are quite foreign to him, having been brought up in a mass of filth in his own village all his life, he will complain, and the idea that he has not been properly treated will spread to those villages and interfere with recruiting. I think those are all the notes I made, but you write if at any time there is anything you want to know before you go out, if to this office your communication will be forwarded to me, and I will do anything within my power.
CHAIRMAN: Is there any problem connected, for instance, with climate which arises which would be specially worth investigating in Ceylon from your experi- ence of the country, for instance, comparing the Cingalese with the Tamil coolies? SIR HENRY MCCALLUM: No, this disease is bad, and so is malaria, and during the last six years much has been done in connexion with the treatment of perangi: ankylostomiasis was not taken up so keenly because the Medical Officers were engaged with perangi. Generally speaking, I do not think Mr. Rose will have any very great difficulty in Ceylon.
MR. WICKLIFFE ROSE: I suppose the Cingalese are not infected as the Tamils SIR HENRY MCCALLUM: Not nearly so much; until comparatively recently the Ceylonese were not infected at all; they seem to have got it, although their habits are not of the cleanest, by going where the Tamils have been, and it seems to me as if the disease had been introduced from them.
are?
CHAIRMAN: You are also going to the Straits Settlements. Has anyone here any suggestion to make about Egypt? Some of us have been there, but perhaps we
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