[In Africa by John T. McCutcheon]@TWC D-Link bookIn Africa CHAPTER IV 20/34
They were in various stages of the disease, but it seemed impossible to tell whether their illness was due to the sleeping sickness germ or was due to tick fever, a common malady among monkeys. In one of the rooms of the laboratory there were natives holding little cages of tsetse flies against the monkeys, which were pinioned to the floor by the natives.
The screened cages were held close to the stomach of the helpless monkey, and little apertures in the screen permitted the fly to settle upon and bite the animal. There are certain wide belts of land in Africa called the "tsetse fly belts," where horses, mules and cattle can not live.
These districts have been known for a number of years, long before the sleeping sickness became known.
In the case of animals, the danger could be minimized by keeping the animals out of those belts, but in the case of humans the same can not be done.
One infected native from a sleeping sickness district can carry the disease from one end of the country to the other, and when once it breaks out the newly infected district is doomed. Consequently the British authorities are greatly alarmed, for by means of this deadly fly the whole population of East Africa might be wiped out if no remedy is discovered.
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