CO885-(18-19) — Page 16

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference -

TIL C.O.885

18 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

56

people. Surely this state of things could be avoided, and surely this is one very important way of keeping many bívu from carrying the disease.

35. If every village near which there are bivu would try to do this it is certain that a very great number of lives would be saved.

36. But this is not all that can be done nor all that should be done. I have told you how you may keep the bivu from biting the sick, but, because we cannot always tell what people are carrying infection, since people are often not ill for a long time after having been infected by the fly, and also because there are many bivu, and, though probably only a few in any place have the infection, we cannot tell which may be the infected ones-for these two reasons we must also keep the fly as much as we can from biting other people as well as the sick.

37. Let us now consider how we can do this.

33. We can do it partly by living further away from the water, away from the places where the bivu are numerous. For it is better to run the risk of being bitten only when you go to the waterside, than to have the bivu all day long about your houses. But this by itself is not enough. We have said that we cannot kill all the biru, but we can do something to make them less numerous and to drive them away; so we must consider first how we can do this and next in what places it will be best to do it.

39.

At Entebbe, near Government House, there were a short time ago very many bivu, but now for the last four months there is not one to be found any longer in many places where one could before catch hundreds. The reason of this is that by cutting down the bush and jungle along the lake shore, and so taking away the shade, we have made it so that the bivu can no longer live there, and they have either died or gone away. We can, therefore, kill or drive them away by the same means in other places.

40. Now we cannot clear the bush and jungle all round the lake shore, so the next question is, what are the places where the fly can do most harm? For there it is that we must try to get rid of them. They are surely those places at which they can bite the most people.

41. And the places where most people can be bitten are houses and villages close to the waterside; the watering places of villages, camps, and houses; places where canoes are landed or kept; markets near the shore; the shores of ferries; and roads very near the water, especially roads leading up from the shore to or from places such as are mentioned above.

42. These are the places, then, where we must try to get rid of the bivu, or at any rate make them less numerous. And the best way to do this is to cut the jungle down along the shore at these places, and to make wide, roads from them when they are cleared to the villages, markets, or roads near by.

43. And now I have mentioned two chief things to be done :-

(a) To keep the bivu from biting the sick people.

(6) To try and make the bivu less numerous at those places where most people go and are likely to get bitten, in order, not only to keep them away from the sick, but from all people.

44. The way to do the first is to keep the sick from going near to the water and to carry them the wafer they require.

45. The way to do the second is to clear the jungle along the shore at these places so that there may be one clear space of perhaps 100 or 200 paces along the water and 50 or 100 paces wide where all people may go and the bivu are less likely to bite them. Also to have wide roads from these clearings through the forest.

46. You will see that by doing the second thing, namely, by clearing, that you also help in the first, for the fewer flies there are left to bite the sick the less likely they are to get bitten.

47. These two things that I have mentioned are what the Government is going to try to do to help you, because they know that by these means many people would be saved from death, and in time the sick people would become very few. But we cannot do these things thoroughly for you unless you will help us. For instance, we cannot keep all the sick people away from the waterside. That only you can do properly, each in his own village. You will not have to spend money or to work

•

57

hard to do it, but you will have to take a little trouble for a long time. And surely it is worth doing if you can prevent yourselves, your wives, your children and your friends from dying of sleeping sickness.

48. With regard to the clearing away of the jungle from the waterside where the bivu are, I have told you in what kind of places it is best to do it. This will cause more work because it must not only be cleared but it must be kept clear by planting the clearing with sweet potatoes or some other small plant which will not give shade to the bivu.* We shall be able to show you how much to clear and where it-is best to make the clearing at any place at which it is required. But in the mean- time all those who get their water from where bivu are should begin to clear at their watering places, for you cannot make a mistake by clearing too much, but, because there is so much to clear, we shall have to be satisfied with clearing enough to keep the bivu away from one spot where the people can freely go at each of these places, and with care we shall soon learn just how much clearing at each place will do this.

49. I know very well that there are still many things about sleeping sickness which are difficult for you to understand, and because of some of these you may be discouraged. I know that in the past all of us, Europeans as well as natives, have been discouraged by the thought that in order to conquer sleeping sickness there was so much to do that we could never do it, and so we have as yet scarcely begun to do anything at all.

50. But what I want you to understand is that we know now that this was a mistake, and that we ought to have begun doing what we could before, only we did not feel quite sure of our knowledge. I want you to understand that every little that we can do is worth doing and will in time do good. Remember that every sick person who is kept from being bitten, every village, market or watering place where there are bivu which is cleared, will prevent many bivu from carrying infection and many people from becoming infected, so that there will be less and less chance of catching the disease as time goes on.

51. Remember too that out of many hivu in any one place only a few are usually carrying infection, so that it is better for a person to be bitten a few times than many, for so he may escape being bitten by an infected fly.

52. Also the bivu near an uncleared village, market or watering place or other place where many people go are more likely to carry infection than bivu along a part

of a lake shore or river bank where few people go, so that it is worse to be bitten

by few flies where there are many people than by many flies where there are few people.

53. If

you are obliged to go to the waterside, for washing or to fetch water, for instance, where there are bivu, you should try to go always in the early morning or the late evening, for then the bivu do not bite so much as when the sun is high.

54. Where sleeping sickness is and where there are many people and many bivu, there is great danger of catching the discase; but if we can do anything so that there are fewer sick people, fewer flies, and fewer opportunities for the flies to bite, then there will be so much the less danger of catching it.

55. I have said before that a country is not much good without plenty of people in it; and the more people there are and the healthier and better off they are the better it is for that country and its people and also for all who are their friends. So that it is for its own good as well as for yours that the Government wishes to save you from sleeping sickness.

56. I also told you that the Europeans do not fear sleeping sickness for them- selves because they have caught it very little in the past. and now they will take such measures as I have recommended to you at their own stations. You cannot doubt, then, that it is to protect you and yours that the Government has spent and is spending so much money and taking so much trouble, and you cannot believe that they would do all this if they did not think that in the end it would be successful.

57. Try, then, to do what we say it is best to do for your own sakes, and, where there is more than you can do, come to the Government officials and ask for advice and help, and they will be given you as far as we are able to give them.

58. In times past other deadly diseases have killed more people in England and Europe than sleeping sickness has killed in Uganda and Usoga, but by finding

28167

• Probably Sim-sim or ground-nuts would do.

H