599
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
mumimmim TITLIC.O.885
74
would be no native quarters in the near vicinity, an immeasurably better climate than Berbera affords, and practically no mosquitoes; moreover, as all the buildings in the Shaab are old and insanitary, and new residences will sooner or later have to be built, practically no extra expenses would be incurred by the Protectorate in carrying out this proposal.
(d.) In the meantime, suitable wire gauze should be provided for all bedrooms and offices of officials; this gauze would not, in my opinion, render houses hotter than they are at present, but would considerably diminish the risk of contagion. Servants' wives and families should on no account be permitted to have their quarters anywhere near European residences.
(e.) Houses are built in most Colonies without due regard to their hygienic fitness, apdare, in my opinion, responsible for a good deal of the ill-health amongst Europeans.
If possible, no house in a tropical country should have walls of less thickness than 24 to 3 feet; a house with walls 4 inches thick not only does not keep the heat out, but becomes itself so heated up as to act most injuriously on most constitutions. Rooms should have very high ceilings, and be very large and well ventilated.
Every house should have an upper-storey room to sleep in.
(f.) With regard to "culicicides," up to the present moment no very cheap and efficient remedy has been discovered. Kerosene regularly applied to pools appears to be the most reliable agent we possess, but for continuous use would prove far too expensive a remedy. The radical treatment of levelling and drainage would, I think, be far more effective.
In conclusion, I would recommend the regular whitewashing of water tanks— lime has a culicicidal effect-a diminished supply of water to the Government Gardens and Musjids, and the destruction of rank vegetation.
Considering what a scourge malaria is, no effect should be spared to render stations healthier by diminishing the number of anopheles.
SIR,
I have, &c.,
GEORGE LANE,
Medical Officer, Somaliland Protectorate.
Enclosure 2 in No. 79.
Dr. MANSON to FOREIGN OFFICE.
(Received February 5.)
21, Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square, W.,
February 4, 1902.
In reply to your letter of the 1st February, covering copy of a despatch from Colonel Sadler, late His Majesty's Consul in Somaliland, and other enclosures in reference to the prevention of malaria, I have no observation to make further than that entirely indorse the remarks made in the letter from Dr. George Lane, Medical Officer, Somaliland Protectorate.
:
75.
Enclosure in No. 80.
Sir C. ELIOT to the MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE.
(Received February 17.)
(No. 5.) MY LORD,
Nairobi, January 14. 1902. WITH reference to your Lordship's despatch, No. 152, of the 22nd May, 1901, respecting the prophylactic measures to be taken against malaria, I have the honour to transmit herewith reports from the various Medical Officers of this Protectorate, together with the Principal Medical Officer's remarks thereon.
I have, &c.,
SIR,
Dr. MACDONALD to Sir C. ELIOT.
C. ELIOT.
Mombasa, December 16, 1901. I HAVE the honour to forward herewith Dr. Paget's Report and recommenda- tions re malaria, and measures which, in his opinion, might be adopted to protect Europeans, &c.
The report is an excellent one and states concisely what my own views are on the matter, and I would strongly recommend that the adoption of his recommendations be entertained.
In Dr. Paget's Report, No. 21, paragraph 1, his observations are exactly my own, and agree in every detail as to symptoms, temperature, duration, and sequelæ follow- ing an attack of malaria.
The subject of black-water fever, or hæmoglobinuria, and its treatment is one which I am not even yet prepared to give a definite line of treatment for, and I hesitate to speak dogmatically on the subject.
Some authorities recommend quinine in large doses; others say quinine should not be given.
!
I must say I am quite open-minded on the subject, and have found in the treat- ment of hæmoglobinuria fever that one must be guided in its treatments by the absence or presence of symptoms other than those of simple hæmoglobinuria. Un- fortunately, medicine is not an exact science like mathematics, and, as I have already remarked, I hesitate to speak very definitely as to the proper or only treatment of black-water fever.
The subject of the treatment of black-water fever is one bristling with all manner of debatable questions, and long and intimate experience in its treatment is the only certain guide to success.
I have, &c.,
WALTER H. B. MACDONALD.
BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-| COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
||PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON | ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE
13066
SIR,
I am, &c.,
PATRICK MANSON,
FOREIGN OFFICE to COLONIAL OFFICE.
No. 80.
(Received April 4, 1902.)
Foreign Office, April 3, 1902.
I AM directed by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to transmit to you, to be laid before the Secretary of State for the Colonies, the accompanying copy of a despatch from His Majesty's Commissioner in the East Africa Protectorate, en- closing Reports on Malaria by the Medical Officers of the Protectorate.
I am, &c.,
CLEMENT LL. HILL.
REPORT by Dr. PAGET on Circular No. 49 rẹ Prevention of Malaria. (a.) Localization of Buildings.-In Lamu the resident Government officials number at present four. All these have been attacked by malarial fever during the last six months-one twice.
Exceptional exposure was seemingly the immediate forerunner in the cases of two of these who had a single attack each, and who live in houses well separated from natives, old wells, or vegetation.
In the case of the other two officials, one was temporarily in an insanitary and dilapidated house, while the other (myself), attacked twice, has several native huts touching parts of the dwelling, with native cesspools and a disused well adjoining. To secure to this house, which acts both as hospital as well as doctors' residence, a relative freedom from the above close proximity, and to free the ground from accumu̟- lation of filth, &c., would entail an outlay of approximately 150 rupees, and a yearly rental of about fifty rupees, for a strip of land about 40 yards long by 15 broad, which, in my opinion, would be sufficient.
No other measures are, I consider, necessary in the immediate present under this section of my Report.
MOR