9 —

Mongalla. The one case found in Yei was proved to be a Congo infection from Faradje district. There have been no indigenous cases in the district since

1924. In Kajo-Kaji district no cases have been found since 1926 and in Opari none since 1927.

Bahr-El-Ghazal.

Admissions. Yambio district gave two cases and the Western district one.

A small local outbreak in Tembura district in the latter part of the year raised the admissions to 26, only seven less than the previous year. The outbreak was confined to an area round Tembura station. A number of cases were traced to infection from an old blind woman in an advanced stage of the disease. She had

long been concealed from inspections and was found living in a house hidden on the banks of a stream. On discovery of this woman the outbreak was soon brought to an end.

The scanty reduction in the admission rate this year was also in part attrib¬ uted to an abnormally long incubation period in certain people who had lived for some time in the French Congo. They were found to be infected a few months after completing the usual six months’ quarantine. After their discharge they no doubt spread infection to some extent, before the disease was detected. Some of them, it was afterwards found, had received Atoxyl in French territory and this had obscured the diagnosis.

Dicharges. 593 patients who were admitted before or during 1923 were discharged, but are being kept under observation for one more year and are still occupying ground in the settlement. Thirty of these had to be re-admitted on shewing signs of the disease.

Treatment. Atoxyl remains the routine treatment, but acetyl-arsan is being tried. Observations following injections of acetyl-arsan show that trypanosomes often disappear from the gland fluid in eight hours, and the cases receiving this treatment are at present showing no signs of the disease. Further trial is necessary before the value of the drug can be ascertained. It is a partic¬ ularly easy drug to administer and will replace atoxyl if it proves efficient.

The Settlement (Source Yubo). The settlement continues to prosper and must be exerting an influence on the district. It occupies an area of roughly 20 square miles and a leper settlement has been started adjoining it on the east. The population of the settlement including relatives is a little less than six thousand, nearly a tenth of the total population. All the able-bodied become self-supporting from private cultivation within six months, yet some 450 tons of cassava were issued during the year as rations to the sick, helpless, new¬

comers and immigrants in quarantine.

A brick making machine is turning out some 1500 bricks a day. The herd of cattle introduced last year is doing well. A number of cows died of tryp¬ anosomiasis contracted on the road, but the calves, born after arrival, survived. Bulls are being trained to pull the newdy-imported plough. The water ram is working satisfactorily, but the w'ater tow^er cracked for lack of enough cement, which the meagre funds available could not buy. A new* one is being built.