Show 66i j > i > 1 SLEEPING SICKNESS I i t DR KOCH OBTAINS NEW LIGHT ON STRANGE MALADY r3 + German Scientist Now In This Country t Coun-try Says Dread African Disease May Be Communicated Like Other Infections n l Now York Now light on that strange malady which attacks the dwellers In tho dark continent the Bleeping sickness of Africa was ob t4 tinned hy Dr Robert Koch the Ills tlngulshcd German scientist who arrived i t J ar-rived here a few days ago after a lopp i fa I tlmo spent In the Gorman c61onlc ol I Africa whore ho had gone for th I 14 < i I j purpose of making H study of the J t I J singular disease I J this scourge IK now attracting the i J ft ontlro medical world 1 attention of the kv Z I oJ A It IH estimated that In Uganda alone 1t4 fully 100000 have succumbed to h t 1 within a few years x i 11 I II t Dr Koch worked for more than o I j year In the Infected districts striving I Ih with tho dogged determination of hli t r rI rnco to BolVo what has now come to it roar bo recognized ns the most urgent oj d I all tho problems of tropical medicine + < I The report of the Gorman commlf I J slon of which ho was the head In 1 > + r cltulcM tho ominous Hiiggeatlou that trypanobonilnsls or sleeping nick ness as It Is more commonly known M 1 may bo communicated like other In tedious diseases 8 t 1 r One suggcuUon advanced by Dr Koch was tho extermination of the crocodile The tsoizo fly which carries At = j t car-ries the Infection to man feeds on this t r saurian This lighthearted proposition proposi-tion to wipe out the crocodile says ° the Journal of Tropical Medicine 1w I 1 w H Il y ° > W 1 4 4 1 1 11q 9 HH f a N t s is t il vL V 1 + tw y S V + T dt Dr Robert Koch does not seriously commend Itself to t us Frankly wo do not BOO how itt 1 It-t can bo done Every tropical sportsman r t sports-man knows that the crocodile is ono Po ii of tho most difficult animals to destroy de-stroy and every naturalist Is aware that its powers of reproduction are v r so enormous and Its habits such as to make it extremely doubtful it its do t structlon could be effected In ovun the r most highly civilized lands tY r Sir Patrick Manson who IB recog eta 41 nizod as an authority on this scourge i says that in tho days of tho slave trade many poor wretches died ol r sleeping sickness doing the voyage l lvlk ncrosb tho Atlantic Nor wero the rhF + a h slaves safe after landing In America y 9 or in the West Indies Months sometimes I s some-times a year afterward and after along i a-long spell of apparent good health sleeping sickness would develop In some of the plantation hands and run Its usual fatal course Hut and the u l Is a remarkable and significant circumstance a cir-cumstance tho disease never spread to those negroes who had been born In America or the West Indies and who had never been to Africa fy awl Not long after the opening up of the Interior of tho Dark Continent + and apparently in consequence of the 4 resulting Increased Intercommunlca R tlon sleeping sickness began to extend + j ex-tend Its endemic area especially so I in the direction of tho Upper Cong s basin and toward the Portuguese tr l + colonies to the south of the Congo + Gradually it crept up the great river ° until it got as far as Stanley Falls t s j1yi ly and now the riveraino villages over a largo part of the Congo Free State 4 1l villages In which tho disease was formerly r 1 for-merly unknown are only too fumllla yf with this terrible scourge 7 The disease was originally disco l ored by Col Bruce of the British Army medical department It is now known i R that It Is caused by an animal parasite < a called trypanosoma which is carried + 1 by a special kind of tsetzo fly Th natives are qulto indifferent to fly 1 n a 7 bites and when once trypanosoma Is I t r l y Introduced into the districts when these tiles abound they die like rotten rot-ten sheep Europeans brush off the r flies and hence seldom fall a prey to 1 the sleeping sickness The tsotzu fly 1 l is a little bigger than tho ordinary house fly Its ravages have long been familiar to nil who have to do with what Is called the tsetzo belt In j14i tip South Africa a region In which no j horses or cattle can live f During his Investigations In South y Africa Dr Koch was under commission to commis-sion by the German government Dr Koch took with him a staff of expert chemists and bacteriologists and + b y lived intho heart of tho Infected districts 7 dis-tricts His investigations there area are-a not complete and lie will probably returnto Africa as soon as his years tour of the world is over d |