The Zululand mystery.

Date:: 1988

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Credit

The Zululand mystery. Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). Source: Wellcome Collection.

About this work

Description

A historical reconstruction of Dr. (later Sir) David Bruce's discovery in 1894 that trypanosome parasites were responsible both for a severe outbreak of cattle wasting disease (ngana) and for the 'fly disease' which was killing the horses of European big game hunters in Zululand. Both conditions were due to infection by trypanosomes transmitted from local game animals to cattle and horses by the bite of the tsetse fly. This video is based on Bruce's own account in his Croonian Lectures to the Royal College of Physicians in 1915 and uses archive film and still photographs as well as dramatic historical reconstruction. With Leon Sinden as David Bruce. 2 segments.

Publication/Creation

UK : Wellcome Trust, 1988.

Physical description

1 encoded moving image (11.04 min.) : sound, color

Contributors

Duration

00:11:04

Copyright note

Wellcome Trust; 2009

Terms of use

Unrestricted

CC-BY-NC

Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales

Language note

In English

Creator/production credits

Made by Wellcome Trust Film Unit. Written by Dr. Billie Williams and directed by Anthony Palmer.

Segment 1 Archive footage of Zululand is seen. The narrator explains that in the C19th, local cattle were dying of a mysterious disease. Zulus suspected that wild game animals were infecting their cattle somehow. Westerners who came to the area to hunt also noticed that their horses were dying, but thought that it was due to the bite of the tsetse fly. The Governor of Zululand, Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson, called in David Bruce of the Army Medical Service to investigate why so many animals were dying. In 1915, David Bruce presented a paper to the Royal College of Physicians, and a dramatic reconstruction of Bruce writing his talk is seen. Leon Sinden as David Bruce describes his arrival in Zululand and how his laboratory was set up. He examines affected cattle but finds no bacteria in the blood or organs. However, further study of the blood revealed a curiously shaped object moving among the blood cells. This was the ngana parasite. Time start: 00:00:00:00 Time end: 00:05:58:20 Length: 00:05:58:20

Segment 2 A magnified view of blood is shown, with the ngana parasite moving around. David Bruce suspects that the tsetse fly disease and the ngana disease are the same and so purposefully infects some oxen and some dogs with the tsetse fly. He finds the same parasites in their blood. In 1896 he shipped an infected dog back to England, allowing further study. Time start: 00:05:58:20 Time end: 00:11:04:24 Length: 00:05:06:04