§ MR. REES (Montgomery Boroughs)To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in reply to Lord Elgin's letter of 18th May, 1906, the Commissioner of British Central Africa reported that any special preventive measures were required against the spread of sleeping sickness; whether the Commissioner maintained his opinion that it was not necessary that one of the medical staff of the Protectorate should visit Uganda far the purpose of studying 1683 the question; and whether any local medical officer possessing experience of this disease will be available to co-operate with the two special officers sent out by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.
§ (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The Commissioner of the British Central Africa Protectorate, in replying to Lord Elgin's despatch, proposed that the medical staff of the Protectorate should be increased, with the view of carrying out preventive measures as recommended by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine; he also inclined to the opinion that it would be well to send a medical officer of the Protectorate to study the disease in Uganda. The highest medical authorities in this country doubted whether any object would be gained by at once introducing preventive measures, having regard to the Governor's Report that no foundation exists for the rumoured occurrence of sleeping sickness on the border of the Protectorate; and the new phase which the matter took was that the Liverpool School proposed to send out their mission of inquiry. With this mission the local officers will certainly co-operate cordially, though it cannot be said that any local medical officer possesses experience of the disease.