Annual medical report / East Africa Protectorate.

  • East Africa Protectorate. Medical Department.
Date:
[1916]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

    79/80 (page 79)
    APPENDIX II.—continued. It is not, of course, suggested that figures deduced from examinations varying between 25 to 150 members of any one tribe, examined at a distance from their homes, can be taken as an index of the general and tribal distribution of Helminthiasis in East Africa. Nevertheless, curiously enough, in nearly every instance in which the distribution of a disease was previously known an examination of the last table shows that the natives from those areas return a proportionately high rate on infection to a remarkable degree. For example, Bilharzia is well-known on the Upper Nile, and a reference to the table immediately shows true by recording a high percentage figure for the tribes therefrom, the Nilotic Nubi giving a return of no less than 30‘7 per cent. It has also been recognised for some time past that the natives settled in the Nyika country, along the course of the Kibwezi and Sabaki Pivers, are infected with the same disease, and this is borne out by the 6'8 per cent, for S. Mansoni for the Wakamba. The Wa-Giriama—the following figures not included in this paper—are also infected, probably very heavily, for of 18 porters sent for physical examination, who appeared to be in good health, a history of previous hmmaturia was obtained from 9, and of 4 of these, who also stated that they could pass blood at the time, and which was done, the terminal spined ova of S. Hmmatobium were demonstrated in all. On the other hand the high figures for the tapeworm inflections, almost all T. Saginata, are due, I believe, to the personal habits of the native of certain tribes, i.e., the Wa-Kavirondo, Kikuyu and Kisil, who do not cook their meat sufficiently, but eat it practically raw, and their results are therefore correspondingly raised. Variations in the distribution of the various infections are thus not only dependent upon geographical, climatic and seasonal conditions, but likewise on the tribal and individual habits of the native. Parasitic human helminthiasis occupies an important position in its bearing on the question of native labour, more especially with reference to its relationship to the inefficiency and mortality which occurs whenever such labour is concentrated on works, whatever they happen to be. From the administrative outlook the problem for the present must apparently confine itself to the practical sanitation of townships, stations and areas, necessarily circumscribed and selected, on which native labourers are employed in large numbers. Expenditure incurred for such special and temporary reasons, and directed towards the attainment of immediate results, is not only justifiable but economic. No ultimate and permanent results could be anticipated with reasonable expectation of success were the same principle to be applied to large areas, except at an entirely prohibitive cost, unless there were at the same time a decided advancement in the standard of education and civilisation of the native. Printed by Waterlow & Sens Limited, London Wall, London. 1918.