65
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
།།།།།།
Reference:-
CO885/25
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE.. LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
SIR,
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(3)
Entebbe, 6th December, 1915. WHEN vacation leave was requested in September it was under the belief that reclamation of the depopulated lake shore and islands would be safe and practicable under conditions and restrictions outlined in the accompanying papers, but that further epidemiological and technical investigations would be necessary to establish this contention. Facilities for this were lacking.
2. It has since been ascertained that much information of the character desired had already been accumulated that the conclusions reached in the course of the bionomic investigations were essentially identical with those reached by you in 1905 that the result of the S.S.E.I. were generally, and in some cases specific- ally, confirmatory: that measures for the suppression of sleeping sickness, framed to accord with these conclusions, appear to have been successful: that there appears to have been no other reason for the adoption of the more radical measures involv. ing depopulation than a wholly different conception of the conditions necessary for the occurrence of epidemic, and, finally, that no other basis for this different conception, is discernible than a misunderstanding of the actual facts concerning the prevalence of the disease at that time.
3. I am therefore requesting (1) that you will examine the evidence sub- mitted, and if, in your opinion, the recurrence of sleeping sickness in epidemic form can be effectually precluded by the measures herewith recommended, (2) that In the event that the question of present expediency be given consideration.
immediate action is adjudged expedient it is further requested that my leave be deferred and term of service prolonged until the work is fairly under way.
4. I feel that much will depend upon the proper application of data con- cerning the bionomics of Glossina palpalis, and that some which have appeared too trivial to collect or report upon may (like those relative to changing lake level upon local prevalence of this fly) prove to be of prime importance.
The Principal Medical Officer,
Uganda Protectorate,
Entebbe.
(4)
I am, &c.,
W. F. FISKE.
SIR,
Entebbe, Uganda, 17th September, 1915. In verbal reply to my communication of recent date, suggesting that the bionomic investigations be discontinued, the proposal was made that an experi- ment in "partial clearing" be made in Bwaia Bay. To this the counter proposal was made that such an experiment be conducted in the Bwendi district, in Buddu, where the shore has already been surveyed for fly and the precise conditions known, and where the expense would be met by the natives, provided the privileges they formerly possessed were to be restored. The objection was made that this district was too far removed from any administrative post, and that it would be too difficult to supervise fishing, etc., if the shore were opened.
2. I have already stated, in a report submitted through your hand to the Colonial Office in June, that an object-the main object, in fact of the experiment which it was hoped to conduct in Buddu, is to ascertain whether any scheme which can be devised for the reclamation of the lake shore and islands is economically practicable, i.e., whether the expense would freely be met by parties interested.
3. The Government is an interested party, so are the Missions and the few European land owners, but at present neither the Government nor other European interests can be expected to offer much assistance. The great burden of the expense would thus fall upon the natives. In the aggregate there are many thousands of them who would willingly pay something (how much only experiment will show), in labour or in cash, for the restoration of their lands and fishing and boating privileges. Upon these we must depend if any reclamation scheme is to be carried through to a successful conclusion-and, if natives bear the burden, it is native interests which ought first to be considered.
4. The amounts which they will pay are proportionate to the advantages which would accrue to them, and these are great in proportion to the number of people taking them particularly is this true of boating privileges, which become valu- able in proportion to the extent of shore reopened to occupation. An economically
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successful outcome could not be expected if the privileges formerly possessed are to remain materially abridged.
5. The Bwaia experiment proposed might or might not succeed in the sense above implied, but, whether it did or did not, it would affect the general situation hardly at all.
To admit that the objections to the alternative Bwendi experi- ment are well taken is to nullify the value which would otherwise attach to a successful outcome to the Bwaia experiment, because the same objections would apply equally to every locality, except those which chance to be adjacent to administrative posts. On this account it seems not worth the making.
6. But there is room for question if the objections to the Bwendi experiment are well taken from any point of view save one, viz., that, before the shore can safely be reoccupied, the fly must be suppressed as completely as on Entebbe penin- sula. There is every reason to believe, and many for believing, that this is not really necessary. Three which have been mentioned in conversation may be placed on record here. The first is particularly pertinent :-
I.
6a. At the very height of the sleeping sickness epidemic in 1906 the disease had made no progress in Bwendi and adjoining districts in Buddu, although districts immediately to the northward were practically depopu- lated. There was some fly (though less than now), and fishing and communi- cation by land and water with epidemic centres and densely fly-infested regions (including Sesse) was unrestricted. It is argued that to reproduce the conditions then existing would certainly be to remain well within the limits of safety, and that to extend these conditions to cover every reach of shore reopened to occupation would be to remain within them.
II.
6b. Glossina palpalis is dependent upon bush for its protection, and Trypanosoma gambiense upon Glossina for its transmission. If we cut all the bush which protects Glossina we exterminate it, but it is most convinc- ingly shown by these investigations that to cut only a part of it will serve equally well the local environment becomes unfavourable to increase, the death rate exceeds the birth rate, and the species disappears. The principle certainly applies to Trypanosoma (as the above circumstance (I.) indicates), and its numerical increase and wider dispersion are impossible in an environ- ment where relatively few flies come into contact with relatively few hosts capable of harbouring it.
III.
Bc. Some years ago a clearing scheme was proposed for Bukakata which, if carried out, would have suppressed the By as completely as at Entebbe port. It was not carried out. Shortly thereafter the natives requested permission to fish at this port, and it was granted under condi- tions as strict as those imposed on fishing at Entebbe. The conditions were not enforced.
None the less, as far as my knowledge goes, no cases of sleeping sickness have developed at Bukakata, nor in any other locality in Uganda (proper), in the past two years, as a result of the exposure of many hundreds of natives to fly to a comparable extent.
7. Theory and hard fact seem to be in accord, and, pending further informa- tion of a sort which I cannot gather at first hand, I must adhere to my belief that the great freedom with which large numbers of natives exposed themselves to an excessive number of flies was responsible for epidemic, and that, by reducing the number of flies and, at the same time, the extent to which the population is exposed to it, the likelihood of recurring epidemic can be reduced to a negligible minimum. 8. To accept this principle would be to overthrow the objections urged against the Bwendi experiment, for at this precise locality the population remained as healthy as in inland villages at a time when epidemic was pressing down from the northward, and at a time when their fishing and boating privileges were unabridged.