Further report on the tsetse fly disease or Nagana, in Zululand / by Surgeon-Major David Bruce.
- Bruce, David, Sir, 1855-1931.
- Date:
- 1896
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Further report on the tsetse fly disease or Nagana, in Zululand / by Surgeon-Major David Bruce. Source: Wellcome Collection.
11/156
![®sfts£ JFXtj gisfasf nr Jlanana. • • 1.—DEFINITION. The Fly Disease or Nag-ana is a specific disease which occurs in the horse, mule, donkev, ox, dog, cat and many other animals, and varies in duration from a few days or weeks to many months. It is invariably fatal in the horse, donkey and dog, but a small percentage of cattle recover. It is characterised by fever, infiltration of coagulable lymph into the subcutaneous tissue of the neck, abdomen or extremities, giving rise to swelling in these regions, by a more or less rapid destruction of the red blood corpuscles, extreme emaciation, often blindness, and the constant occurrence in the blood of an infusorial parasite, either identical with or closely resembling the Trypanosoma Evansi found in Surra, a disease of India and Burmah. On post mortem examination the following changes are noticed: deposition of a yellow jelly like material in the subcutaneous tissue, inter-muscular layers, and under the serous covering of the heart; with purplish stains or eccliymoses in various regions, as on the inner aspect of the skin, the serous membrane covering the lungs, and outer and inner surfaces of the heart; enlargement and softening of spleen and conges¬ tion and fatty degeneration of the various organs. 2.—NOMENCL AT LIRE. This disease in South Africa may generally be said to have been called the “ Flv Di sease ** by European travellers and hunters, and Nagana by the natives and those white settlers in Zululand who have come much in contact with the natives. The term “Fly Disease ” has of course been giyen on the supposition that the disease is caused by the bite of the Tsetse Fly, and the term Nagana from the symptoms presented by the animals suffering from the disease, the word Nagana meaning in Zulu to be low or depressed in spirits. In past times the disease was known by the name Injoko, and at the present in some parts of the country, as in the valley of the Black Umfulosi, it is called Munca, from the sucked out appearance of the diseased animals. M. Scloss, a Belgian Engineer, who came from the Congo to the Selati Railway in 1894, recognised the disease as being the same as “la mouche ” in the Congo State. 3.—DISTRIBUTION IN ZULULAND. For the purpose of future reference it would be well to give as fully as possible in this Report the distribution of the disease in Zululand, and to this end I intend to address the various Resident Magistrates in their several districts asking for information to enable me to prepare a map showing the localities where the disease is endemic. A map of this kind will be more useful than a mere list of places. Broadly it may be stated that the disease is limited to certain tracts, the physical conditions of which imply heat and moisture. These tracts in Zululand are situated in the level coast plain which extends some 50 miles inland, and in the river valleys which enter or debouch on this plain. From LIbombo, situated on the summit of one of the hills forming the chain of the Lebombo Mountains, a good view is obtained of this level coast plain, stretching from the base of the mountains to the sea some 60 miles off. It looks as level as a billiard table, and is covered as far as the eye can reach with a dense thorny scrub of mimosa, which at this time of the year, and at this distance, is olive-green in colour. Streaking the level expanse are numerous open spaces or glades covered with grasses, vivid green in colour. This huge plain stretches as far as the eye can reach to the north and south and merges in the blue of distance and of the sea to the eastward. A few miles to the south, the River Mkusi can be seen winding across the plain, having just passed through the Lebombo range by a deep canon or poort, to fall into St. Lucia Lake, its course being marked by the denser vegetation along its banks; and some dozen miles to the north, another river, the Pongola, runs out into the plain in the same manner, to turn northward to Delagoa Bay. The stri] some 15 miles out, is “ except by wild animals. of country opposite, lying between the two rivers and extending Fly Country,” the home of Nagana and malaria, and uninhabited v 4 / E](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3046934x_0011.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
