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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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II.-Means for the Prosecution of Research.

In addition to the provision required by any given specific investigation, it is important that Research Institutes, adequately staffed and equipped, should be provided in certain selected Colonies. It is essential that their primary function should be the prosecution of research work, i.e., the investigation of specific and important problems, and that the energy of their staff should be devoted to this and not to the performance of routine diagnosis work. Such institutes should be few in number and thoroughly well equipped and staffed.

III.--The Diffusion to Workers of the Results of the Most Recent Investigations.

This is also very important, and can only be carried out at considerable cost. Such work is done most efficiently by the Bureau of Tropical Diseases and by the Bureau of Entomology; both of these have now been in operation for many years and have had a considerable influence in advancing our knowledge of Tropical medicine.

IV.-The Supervision of Specific Investigations.

In many instances, the problems of Tropical medicine have required in the past, and will require in the future, that investigators should proceed to conduct their researches in the field. Good results have been obtained by placing such investiga- tions under the control of a Committee either appointed by the Secretary of State for this purpose or else by a Committee of the Royal Society. In the case of the well known work carried out on plague in India, the former method was adopted. In the case of Malta fever, malaria, and trypanosome diseases, the latter. The Royal Society is well suited, for many reasons, for work of this character, and has often undertaken it when requested to do so by a Secretary of State.

May, 1921.

25240

No. 138.

NIGERIA.

SIR HUGH CLIFFORD to COLONIAL OFFICE. (Received 23rd May, 1921.) [Answered by No. 140.]

SIR,

The Hyde Park Hotel, Knightsbridge, London, S. W., 21st May, 1921. WITH reference to Sir Herbert Read's letter of the 22nd April,* I have the honour to inform you that, in accordance with the request therein contained, I arranged to meet Dr. G. A. Marshall, the Director of the Bureau of Entomology, and his colleagues at the office of the Bureau on the 28th April, Dr. Johnson, of the West African Medical Staff, being present and assisting in the discussion.

2. As a result of this meeting, Dr. Johnson undertook, in consultation with Mr. Lloyd, the Entomologist, to whom Dr. Marshall proposes the task of investiga- tion into the distribution, etc., of the tsetse fly in Nigeria should, in the first instance, be entrusted in conjunction with Dr. Johnson, to prepare for my inspection detailed estimates showing the probable cost of the inquiry.

3. On receipt of these estimates, of which, together with a covering letter from Dr. Johnson, I herewith enclose a copy, I forwarded them to Dr. Rice, the Director of Medical and Sanitary Service in Nigeria, who is at present on leave in this country, asking him to be so good as to furnish me with his observations and recom- mendations. I now enclose a copy of Dr. Rice's memorandum.

4. The position, as disclosed by the estimates prepared by Dr. Johnson, is that expenditure amounting in round figures to £2,575 will be needed to meet the cost of a preliminary survey during the current year, if the work be begun on a modest scale with Dr. Johnson and Mr. Lloyd as the only European officers engaged upon it; that this expenditure will rise to £5,346 during the coming year; and that, as the investigation, if it is to be of any real value, must be continued systematically and without interruption, this annual outlay must be regarded as a recurrent charge. I am also of opinion that Dr. Johnson has cut his estimates down to a very low level, and I am inclined to think that it is not improbable that, in actual practice, they may have to be exceeded.

* 47525: not printed.

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5. I have said that the investigation, once begun, must be proceeded with con- tinuously; and the question which calls for immediate consideration is whether, at the present time, the Government of Nigeria is in a financial position that justifies it in embarking upon a task the annually recurrent cost of which it would not, I think, be safe to place at less than £6,000 per annum, and which, if the Government commit itself thereto, cannot at a later period be discontinued without sacrificing much of the value of the work which will by then have been accomplished. I am very sensible of the embarrassing financial position with which we are to-day con- fronted in Nigeria, and I am very averse from advocating the adoption of any action that is calculated to add to our already heavy commitments. Especially am I chary of even suggesting such a course where postponement can be regarded as a possibility. In this case, however, I feel strongly that my Government should not hesitate to embark upon the required expenditure; and I base this opinion upon the following considerations :-

6.

7.

(i) The extension of the Eastern Railway, after it passes the Benue will run through the Province of Nassarawa, in various parts of which sleeping sickness has already manifested itself. Parts of the valley of the Benue, which the new line will traverse just above Abinsi, have also an evil reputa- tion for the same reason; and it appears to me that it is highly expedient that we should learn in advance, as accurately as may be possible in the short time at our disposal before actual work begins in these localities, where the danger- spots are situated.

(ii) It is a highly disturbing fact that during 1920 cases of sleeping sickness occurred among the men of the First Battalion of the Nigeria Regiment stationed at Kaduna, in circumstances which left little doubt that infection must have been contracted in the near neighbourhood of the capital of the Northern Provinces. Speaking from memory, sums aggregating approximately half a million sterling have, since 1st January, 1914, been expended on creating a town in the scrub and sparse woodland by which, for a distance of many miles in every direction, Kaduna is surrounded; and it is of the utmost importance that the extent of the danger from infection by the trypanosome, to which the inhabitants of this place are likely now or in the future to be exposed, and the preventive measures that it may be possible to adopt, should form the subject of immediate investigation and consideration. I therefore submit, for the consideration of the Secretary of State, that Mr. Lloyd should be engaged with the least possible delay, as proposed by Dr. Marshall, and that telegraphic instructions should be sent to Mr. Cameron, the Officer Administering the Government, to second Dr. Johnson for duty immediately on his arrival at Lagos-Dr. Johnson being at this moment on the high seas-and to cause him to make all preliminary arrangements in anticipation of the arrival of Mr. Lloyd. Mr. Cameron should, I suggest, be at the same time informed that the sum of £2,600 (it is as well, I think, to take a round figure) may be provided for this purpose during the current year, and that he should issue a special warrant for that amount forthwith. In the despatch which will follow, authority might be given to him to include a sum of, say, £6,000 in the Estimates for 1922-23 for this service. 8. There is yet another matter connected with sleeping sickness which I desire to bring to the notice of Mr. Secretary Churchill before I conclude this letter. I was present last night at the meeting of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, at which Dr. Claude H. Marshall, a Senior Medical Officer in the service of the Government of Uganda, read a paper in which he laid before the Society facts which, at any rate, provide a measure of presumptive evidence that a cure has been found for this disease. Many of those present, and notably Dr. Low and Dr. Manson Bahr, were not prepared to accept Dr. Marshall's facts as conclusive proof that a remedy has, in fact, been found; but Professor Simpson, who occupied the Chair, and who draws a parallel between the uses to which vaccines are put and the methods adopted by Dr. Marshall, is inclined to attach very great importance to the alleged discovery; and on the motion of Colonel Elliot, D.S.O., M.B., F.L.S., a motion was put to the meeting, and unanimously carried, to the effect that the Secretary of State should be asked to take measures to see that the new reputed cure is assured as wide a field as possible of experimental tests, and that the Colonial Governments in British Tropical Africa be urged to provide for this purpose such funds as may be needed. I ventured to assure the meeting, on behalf of my Govern- ment, that every effort would be made in Nigeria to give effect to this resolution; and I feel confident that, in so doing, I shall meet with the approval of the Secretary of State.

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