Sleeping Sickness

Abstract

SLEEPING SICKNESS, or African lethargy, is a disease the history of which we can trace back no further than 100 years. The first description that we know of is that of Winterbottom, who, writing of Sierra Leone in 1803, said: “The Africans are very subject to a species of lethargy which they are much afraid of, as it proves fatal in every instance.” The disease has been met with along the whole of the west coast of Africa from the mouth of the Senegal to as far south as S. Paolo de Loanda. Cases have also occurred in the French Antilles, due to importation of African natives. To what extent it prevailed along the west coast of Africa in bygone days it is now impossible to say, but even at the present time many of the French possessions are perhaps as seriously affected as Uganda now is.