Depopulated by Flies by E. M. Newman

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 5, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 26.

Depopulated by Flies

By E. M. Newman

(E. M. Newman, in "The World To-Day")

IN my tramps through Uganda, I marched many miles through districts which were little less than graveyards. Hundreds of empty huts testified to the ravages of sleeping sickness, and everywhere was the stillness of death. In former years travelers were able to obtain provisions from the natives in Uganda, but since the sleeping sickness scourge has visited the country, exploring parties and caravans are compelled to carry every pound of food they require. During several long marches, I looked carefully for signs of human life; but if there were any survivors they had fled. Entire districts have been afflicted by this frightful disease; and I will never forget the depressing, gloomy aspect of the country through which I marched, hoping that the tales I had heard of the frightful loss of life were untrue. I not only found that the statements which had gone out were justified, but, if anything, the loss of life was underestimated. I shall always remember the emaciated, forlorn-looking children whom I saw in the sleeping sickness camps. These horrors are beyond the imagination of one who has never visited such an afflicted district.

Not all of Uganda is afflicted with sleeping sickness. There are large sections in which the fly can not live; but the unfortunate thing is that the spread of the disease is greatest where the population is the most numerous, and it is only natural that the natives will flock to that portion of the country where the land is most fertile. The best land is usually near the rivers and lakes, and in Uganda such territory is the home of the tsetse fly. Government officials have succeeded in driving most of the natives out of the infected area, and the development of the disease will undoubtedly be checked to some extent by these measures. After the present victims die out, the danger of infection will decrease, because the fly will have fewer opportunities to inoculate healthy natives.