Report on the measures adopted for the suppression of sleeping sickness in Uganda / by Sir H. Hesketh Bell ; presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of His Majesty.
- Great Britain. Colonial Office.
- Date:
- 1909
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Report on the measures adopted for the suppression of sleeping sickness in Uganda / by Sir H. Hesketh Bell ; presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of His Majesty. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![Great Moriality. 18. It appears from such statistics as are available that the mortality from sleeping' sickness has been on the following scale:— In 1900 there were 8,430 deaths; in 1901, 10,384; in 1902, 24,035; in 1903, 30,441; in 1904, 11,251; and dnriiig 1905, 8,003. This total of 92,544, however, only represents the loss of life during six years in the Ivingdom of JlugaiKla alone. The mortality in Busoga, where statistics have not been available, has probably been quite as great if not greater, and if we also include the deaths that have occurred from sleeping sickness in ITnyoro and the Nile District, it may be taken that the total mortality from this scourge in the Uganda Protectorate up to the end of 1900 considerably exceeded 200,000. De'popvlati'on of the Sesse Islands. 19. The decrease in the number of deaths in the Kingdom of Buganda in 1904 and 1905 is not believed to have been due to any diminution in the virulence of the disease.,In my report to the Earl of Elgin, dated 23rd November, 1906, 1 wrote: “ The natives have been almost completely wiped out everywhere along the Lake shore, and in the islands the mortality has been even more appalling. Buvuma, for instance, which a few years ago was one of the most thickly populated and prosperous of all the islands, counted over 30,000 inhabitants. There are now barely 14,000. Some of the Sesse group have lost every soul; while in others a few moribund natives, crawling about in the last stages of the disease, are all that are left to represent a once teeming population. It might have been expected that, even though the negroes showed inability to grasp the theory of the transmission of disease by the agency of insects, the undeniable deadliness of the countries immediatelj' bordering on the Lake shore would have induced them to flee from the stricken land and to have sought in the healthier districts inland a refuge from the pestilence that was slaying them by thousands. An extraordinary fatalism, however, seems to have paralysed the niatives, and while deploring the sadness of their fate they appear to have accepted death almost with apathy, and to have preferred to perish in their old surroundings rather than migrate to countries where the conditions of life might possibly be un- congenial.” Professor KocJds Researches. 20. Ill September, 1900, Professor Koch, accompanied by a highly (|ualified staff of assistants, arrived in Uganda, for the second time, with the intention of continuing the researches which lie had commenced two years before. He established himself on one of the islands of the Sesse group, where the disease raged with terrible virulence, and seems to have devoted himself specially to the discovery of curative methods. The Profes.sor a]ipeared to ])lace considerable reliance on the beneficial](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22425676_0008.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
