TROPICAL DISEASES THAT HAVE THEIR ORIGIN IN CIVILISATION

Long experience has led me to divide the diseases of the tropics into two groups,—those that have their origin in uncivilised communities, but are distributed through the agencies of civilisation, and those that have their origin in civilisation. So far I have been concerned mainly with the former group; and of the influence it is likely to exercise on the destiny of the human race in equatorial Africa, some idea may be formed from the evidence supplied by Uganda. For some years Uganda has been suffering from two diseases which threaten to exterminate the whole population,—sleeping sickness and syphilis. In 1908 it was reported that within seven years 300,000 of the inhabitants had died from sleeping sickness. Syphilis threatens to be an even more appalling visitation. From the report of Colonel Lambkin, R.A.M.C., appointed in 1908 to inquire into the subject, it appears certain that a main cause of the spread of the disease has been the emancipation of the Baganda women, through the agency of European civilisation, from the restrictions in which they were formerly held. This opinion is held not only by the native Prime Minister of Uganda, but by both Catholic and Protestant missionaries.

I pass on to a consideration of the most fatal of all forms of disease having their origin in civilisation, diseases arising out of the excessive use of spirituous liquors in European civilisation, and diseases arising out of the excessive use of narcotic drugs in Asiatic civilisation.