First report / Yellow Fever Commission (West Africa).

  • Yellow Fever Commission (West Africa)
Date:
[1913?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: First report / Yellow Fever Commission (West Africa). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    12. In the selection of the centres at which the Investigators were to work the Commission were influenced mainly by the distribution of the cases of Yellow Fever in the epidemics of 1910, 1911 and 1912, as if the virus of the disease lies latent between the outbreaks it was thought that evidence of its presence would most probably be dis- covered in such places. 13. As no cases of Yellow Fever had been reported from Southern Nigeria during those years, and as the Principal Medical Officer reported that no suspicious cases of fever had since occurred, no Investigators were at first sent to that Colony, but the Staff of the Medical Research Institute at Lagos were requested to receive and examine any reports and material and to act as the local centre of investigation. 14. Since then an unexpected epidemic of Yellow Fever has occurred at Lagos, where twenty-two cases have been locally diagnosed as such. 15. The staff of the Medical Research Institute at Lagos, with Investigators of the Commission, have observed many of these cases with great care, and their reports and the pathological material from these cases are now, with other reports and material from elsewhere, being examined by the Commission in London. 16. Cases of Yellow Fever have also been diagnosed since the work of the Commission commenced at the following places : Accra (10), Burutu (S), Forcados (i), Abokabi (i), Quittah (3), Abeokuta (5), Warri (2), Cape Coast (i), of which five in Europeans have proved fatal. 17. Scientific observations which, if confirmed, are of the highest importance have been made at Lagos, but the Commission, having regard to the serious responsibility attaching to any ofificial announce- ment of the kind, unless supported by the strongest evidence, do not propose at this stage of their investigation to do more than mention the fact. The researches are being continued, and Dr. Harald Seidelin, one of the Investigators at Accra, has been ordered by tele- gram to proceed at once to Lagos and confer with the staff there. It may be mentioned that in 1909 Dr. Seidelin claimed to have [224125] lA