Annual medical report / East Africa Protectorate.

  • East Africa Protectorate. Medical Department.
Date:
[1919]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual medical report / East Africa Protectorate. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    88/90 (page 86)
    The patient left hospital in excellent health thirty-four days after the outset of his illness. This disease appears to be unknown to the natives of Kenya Province and to those of the East Africa Protectorate in general so far as I am able to ascertain. The patient, a particularly intelligent member of the Wa-Meru tribe who inhabit the cool foothills to the North-East of Mount Kenva, was very definite in stating that he had never heard of any such condition among his people ; no other result has followed on my inquiries of Kikuyus. Swahilis or Kavi- rondos, i.e., of representatives of tribes hailing from parts of the country differing greatly from one another not only in position but in climate and in conditions of life. It seems to me suggestive that in this respect my experience differs from that of observers of apparently the same or of apparently allied conditions who have been able to ascertain the name by which the natives knew them, and in some instances to state that the diseases were greatly feared. The patient had been exposed to the possibility of infection outside of this Protectorate, if, as Dr. Wellman has held, this disease is an acute specific infection. He had served for three years of the late war in our Intelligence Service, both in German and in Portuguese territory, and had been in the country of Wa-Nyamwezi, among whom an allied condition Kavindo has been described by Mense, while Feldman also in East Africa has found a similar disease known as Ejjuo. If, however, the disease is an infection foreign to this Protectorate, then it must be one which may long remain in abeyance, for the patient had returned to this country some nine months before he fell ill. During the three months preceding the outset of his illness the man had worked in the hot and unhealthy country traversed by the upper waters of the Tana River. This is a sparsely inhabited country, and I have had no opportunity to find out whether symptoms such as the patient presented are known among the scanty population. It is to be regretted that this particular case throws no light upon the etiology of this obscure disease. I have to thank the Principal Medical Officer of this Protectorate for his courteous permission to put forward these observations on an unusual and interesting condition. Waterlow & Sons Limited, London Wail, London.—1921.