Sanitary Statistics of Native Colonial Schools and HospitalsNightingale, Florence
History
Sanitary Statistics of Native Colonial Schools and Hospitals
Nightingale, Florence
Hospital buildings -- Sanitation -- Statistics
Under the head of “All other Diseases” is included one “lethargus,”
a disease which, as far as I am aware, is altogether confined to
the native population, “more particularly to the Kossohs and Congos
tribes.” It is not restricted to any particular period of life, as old
and young are equally liable to it. It is purely a disease of the brain
and nervous system, generally fatal, except when seen in the very early
stages. As it is generally met with, the patient sleeps continually,
even when standing up, and becomes perfectly incapable of any exertion;
the sufferer will even fall asleep while being fed. I have seen them
last in this state for months, and gradually die of inanition from
want of a sufficiency of food to support life. I have tried all kinds
of treatment, but cannot recommend any more likely to be beneficial
than a prolonged slight salivation, if you can meet the case in the
inflammatory stage or that previous to the sleeping state just alluded
to.
This and leprosy are the only diseases met with here from which the
European is exempt.
ROBT. BRADSHAW, L.K. & Q.C.P.I.
Colonial Surgeon.
Freetown, Sierra Leone.
NATAL.
_Special Remarks._―Of seven of the eight cases of syphilis (native),
Hottentots were the subjects. Here, as elsewhere, they copy European
vices very readily. The Kafirs adhere to their own vices, but are more
slow in copying European manners and habits, good or evil.
I have met with one decided case of scrofula among the Zulus, and one
only.
The ages of infants are reckoned by moons, but adult Kafirs (as the
rule) do not know how old they are; the ages given are therefore only
surmised, and cannot be depended on.
The tendency of disease among the Kafirs is to collapse and paralysis.
No year goes round without deaths from cold and wet, which they bear
less well than European settlers. They are apt to sink under any
serious form of disease.
Flesh wounds heal well, causing less constitutional disturbance than
among Europeans, but fractured bones do not so soon re-unite. I have
found lime water, a pint or more given daily, promote their union. Lime
is scarce here, and the shells of eggs are correspondingly thin.
Lung disease is more frequent among natives than white settlers, unless
the latter bring the seeds of disease with them; but I doubt whether
it is true phthisis. I suspect that the lungs of both natives and
settlers are more liable to become hepatized or otherwise disorganized
than tuberculated. In examining the lungs of cattle who have died of
lung sickness, I have found large portions of lung degenerated into
an impervious muscle-like substance resembling beef, while in other
portions the disease has shown itself to be of so anemic a character
as to have proceeded without much pause to suppuration. I believe that
in this climate, subjects of phthisis, who had only small tubercles in
their lungs, would find their further development arrested; indeed this
has been, in many cases, proved to have occurred.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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