94 — Avhere trachoma is a most pressing problem, their number is being increased and they are being employed to do anti-trachoma work in the villages among the children not attending the village schools. It is thought that as it becomes possible to supervise their work better and to reward their services more adeqately, they will become a very useful body of men carrying out primary medical and health work in the non-tribal areas of the northern and central Sudan.

Sheikhs Dressers and Chiefs Dressers.

To meet the need for treatment among the pagan tribes of the south, and among the nomad Arabs of the northern and central Sudan where the sanitary barber of the settled Arab would be out of place, a system of sheikhs’ dressers and chiefs’ dressers has been recently instituted. The chief or sheikh is invited to send a number of youths for training. These, if they meet with the approval of the medical i nspector, are given a course of first-aid training. They are taught to dress wounds, to treat inflammatory conditions of the eye, to treat ulcers, to vaccinate and to administer simple stock mixtures.

In the rainy season an abrasion or a simple wound rapidly becomes an ulcer, and these ulcers in course of time become chronic and intractable and rank only second to yaws as a cause of permanent disablement. It is thought that by providing first-aid treatment in villages, cattle camps and nomad encampments many of these disastrous cases could be prevented.

These dressers are under the chief or sheikh for discipline, and are sent up to the hospital or dispensary every year for a short “ Refresher course. The arrangement is still largely experimental, but up to the present shows promise of success.

Laboratory Assistants.

These are youths of some intelligence and education who receive a course of instruction at the Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratories in simple laboratory work. They are taught to prepare and examine blood films for malaria, to ex¬ amine for urinary and intestinal parasites, to carry out the various urinary tests and other simple laboratory work. They have proved themselves most useful in carrying out this simple laboratory work at the provincial hospitals and at the quarantine stations, for the most part under the supervision of a medical in¬ spector.

Sanitary Overseers.

These are natives who have received some elementary education who are trained for the most part by the British sanitary inspectors and who work under their supervision. In the towns under the British sanitary inspectors they supervise conservancy work, inspect for nuisances and do anti-malarial work in and round the towns. In the irrigated areas they inspect for and report mosquito breeding and leakages from the canals, and are in charge of oiling parties.

The training of these men has up to the present been haphazard and no definite terms of service have been laid down. It is now proposed to build up a native subordinate sanitary service on somewhat similar lines to the existing subordinate medical service.

Health Organisation.

Public health work in Khartoum Province which includes the towns of Khar¬ toum, Khartoum North and Omdurman, is under the control of the Medical