CO885-(18-19) — Page 3

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along the foreshore will be cleared to a width of 25 yards only, and the result watched as before, and so on with fresh strips till a definite knowledge is obtained of the width to which successful clearing should be carried. The lake shore here is readily accessible for frequent observation and supervision, and, since it is fairly thickly infested with fly and very densely covered with a moderately wide belt of forest and undergrowth, the test should give a reliable average for most foreshores.

It is probable that a still larger experiment, embracing the whole of the Entebbe Peninsula, will also be undertaken.

A line would be drawn from the head of Kesubi Bay to the head of the opposite hay on the western side, and the whole peninsula south of this would be dealt with by the clearing of inhabited and fly-infested foreshores, ferries, landings, watering- places and native markets, and by the removal, where necessary, of natives and their dwellings from the fly-range, so as to form, if successful in any marked degree, an object lesson to teach the natives what they can do for themselves; and I have great hope that this will be both practicable and ultimately successful. Most of the statistics of this peninsula necessary for the experiment have already been obtained with this object in view, but they will have to be corrected by further observations unless a beginning of operations is soon made.

I believe the above-mentioned area to be the most favourable which can be taken, for the following reasons:---

(1) The fact that it is a peninsula, is accessible, and can comparatively easily.

be overlooked by the Administrative and Medical Authorities.

(2) That Entebbe might naturally be looked to by the natives as the centre

of our endeavours against sleeping sickness.

(3) That this area is well known to the natives to be in many parts thickly infested by fly, has had a bad name among them for sleeping sickness in the past, and is certainly not a locality of which they could after- wards say that what has been done here cannot be done in most other places.

It is necessary to bear in mind, however, in this or any similar experiment, that, even under the most favourable circumstances, it will be impossible to stamp out sleeping sickness suddenly and at once. Success will have to be measured by the decrease in fresh cases in proportion to the existing population, but, for some con- siderable time, a great though diminishing fallacy will be present in the fact that a certain number of the inhabitants are doubtless already infected, and, owing to the incubation or febrile period being sometimes prolonged to several years, many new cases may be cropping up during that period, although there may have been very few or no recent infections.

It may be found possible, however, by systematic examination of glands and by means of gland puncture, to get a fairly clear idea of how many of the cases are due to former and how many to recent infection.

In addition to these experiments certain areas such as the foreshores at ferries, fords, canoe-landings, village dipping-places and native markets, have been specially recommended for clearing; and this is being done, where possible, either wholly or partially by the natives themselves. Such places are being noted monthly in their reports by the Medical Officers of the Sleeping Sickness Extended Investigations, who are directed to instruct the local chiefs as to the connection of Glossina palpalis with sleeping sickness, the reasons for clearing, the situations where it is necessary and the amount which will probably be required. These instructions are being supported by the Administrative Authorities, and in due course the Medical Officers will re-examine these clearings and note their local effects as regards the fly, the use the natives make of them and whether they are keeping them in effective order by planting or by other means.

I have proposed also a more general scheme of clearing for serious consideration, namely, that the cutting of fuel on the mainland and islands for steamers and other purposes should be restricted as much as possible to such localities as, now and hereafter, may be recommended for especial clearing and, outside these areas, to a zone not more than a hundred yards in breadth from the water's edge. I have also suggested that the cutting of timber, for any purpose for which it may be required, might be encouraged within the same limits, provided that the undergrowth is also removed, the regulations on this head to be applied to the great lakes and to such rivers as are used for navigation, wherever G. palpalis is present on the margins.

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The undergrowth, when cut, should be collected and burned along the waterside, so as to aid in the destruction of any pupa which might be deposited there.

It is hoped that means may be devised of storing and stacking the green wood for drying at convenient places, so that the wood-cutting necessary for the large and increasing amount of fuel consumed by the steamers may be turned to account for the special clearing required, and the value of the fuel set off against the expense of the same.

To revert to special clearings at places of human concourse, it is probable that none of these need extend over more than a relatively small area, and that, in the case of fords, ferries, landings and dipping-places, a strip of bank or foreshore 200 to 300 yards long and perhaps not more than 50 to 100 yards back, with a wide track from it, where the fringe of forest or jungle is deeper than the width of the clearing, In making to the nearest road, market or settlement, will in most instances suffice. these clearings for natives it will be well to remember that a few tall shade-trees, well isolated, and as nearly as may be in the centre of the cleared space, should, wherever possible, he left standing, or, failing these, an artificial shelter built, for otherwise many natives will not use the clearings at all, but will sit, eat and sleep in the jungle at their margins.

Wherever clearing is undertaken in order to banish the fly it will be necessary to keep open the cleared spaces, and, at the same time, to avoid the endless labour and expense inseparable from the constant re-cutting which would be required to keep down the undergrowth in a climate in which it renews itself so rapidly as in the Uganda Protectorate, and the only way to do this effectually seems to be by planting some grass or small plant which by its hardihood will retain a hold on the ground while affording no efficient shelter for the fly. Of course the best, economically speaking, would be such as would give some marketable return, if such can be found. His Excellency the Commissioner has instituted at Entebbe the planting of citronella grass, and this has hitherto been perfectly successful as regards the fly. Probably the best substitute for it in many native clearings will be either the sweet potato, Bananas afford too the ground-nut or sem-sem, according to the nature of the soil. much shade for it to be safe to plant them close to the waterside, though a shadeless space of 30 yards or so between them and the water seems to be sufficient to keep the fly out of them.

It will be safer and cheaper, in the case of huts and villages wholly or partially within the fly-range, if they cannot be removed altogether, to move back the dwellings out of range and to make a clearing such as has been described above to connect them with the water supply. The distance which they may need to be moved in order to be beyond the fly-range may possibly vary from 50 yards to half a mile, but, in some cases, as where they are situated on a very narrow bush-clad peninsula difficult to clear, or where the fly-range is abnormally wide, it would be imperative to remove them altogether. It will seldom, in fact, be wise or necessary to clear whole settle- ments within the fly-range. If they are far enough back and sufficiently well situated, the foreshore, with a communication from it to the settlement, may be cleared, otherwise they should be removed. Where the inhabitants are very few or the sick are very many and communities are therefore unable to take the ordinary precautions, or where they are refractory and refuse to do so, they should be deported to some fly-free area in the interior.

What has been said of huts and villages applies in most instances to native markets. Some of them may have to be entirely cleared, some moved further inland and some abolished. These markets are notoriously situated in the very worst places as regards fly, and have probably, as has been suggested above, actually caused the superabundance of flies that infest them. No attempt is made by the natives on their own account to clear them; they are widely resorted to by both sick and sound and by both coast and inland people, as well as, in many cases, by islanders, and are probably the most dangerous centres of infection which exist.

I am strongly of opinion that, where natives refuse or are unable to undertake the necessary local clearing, they should, for the sake of the community, be forbidden to occupy villages or to visit markets within the fly-range, wherever there is a reasonable chance of enforcing their obedience; and that, where there is little or no chance that natives, either on account of the natural difficulties or of their own indisposition, will deal effectively with their own settlements, they should be deported inland to a fly-free area at such a distance as will make communication with, or return to, the fly-range difficult. For while, theoretically, persons and villages need

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O.885

18 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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