Chapter III: Nature’s Revenges: the Sleeping Sickness (2)

Infectious disease, it was long ago pointed out, must be studied from three main points of view: (1) the life history and nature of the disease-germ or infective matter; (2) the infected subject, his repellant or tolerant possibilities, and his predisposition or receptivity; (3) the intermediary or carrying agents. Whilst it is true that little or nothing has been done by the State in acquiring or making use of knowledge as to the first and second of these factors, with a view to controlling the spread of disease, it is the fact that much has been done both in the way of investigation and administration in relation to the third factor. The great public-health enquiries and consequent legislation in this country, in which scientific men of the highest qualifications, such as Simon, Farr, Chadwick, and Parkes, took part during the Victorian period, have had excellent results; to them are due the vast expenditure at the present day on pure water, sewage disposal, and sanitary inspection. But little or nothing has been done in regard to the first and second divisions of the subject, in which the less organised portions of the British Empire are more deeply concerned than in waterworks and sewer-pipes. It is still contested whether leprosy (which is a serious scourge in the British Empire, though expelled from our own islands) is a matter of predisposition caused by diet or solely due to contagion; and yet it is left to individual practitioners to work out the problem. The State prepares vaccine lymph in a cheap and unsatisfactory way for the use of its, till recently, compulsorily vaccinated citizens; but the State, though thus interfering in the matter of vaccine, has spent no money to study effectively and so to improve the system of vaccination. Here and there some temporary and ineffective enquiry has been subsidised by a Government office; but there is no great army of investigators working in the best possible laboratories, led by the ablest minds of the day, with the constant object of improving and developing in new directions the system of inoculation. Surely if compulsion, or every pressure short of compulsion, is justified in enforcing vaccine inoculation on every British family, it would be only reasonable and consistent to expend a million or so a year in the perfection and intelligent control of this remedy by the most skilled investigators. Yet not a halfpenny is spent by the British Government in this way. Medicine is organised in this country by its practitioners as a fee-paid profession; but as a necessary and invaluable branch of the public service it is neglected, misunderstood, and rendered to a large extent futile by inadequate funds and consequent lack of capable leaders. The defiant desperate battle which civilised man wages with Nature must go on; but man’s suffering and loss in the struggle--the delay in his ultimate triumph--depend solely on how much or how little the great civilised communities of the world seek for increased knowledge of nature as the basis of their practical administration and government.

POSTSCRIPT, December, 1906.--Messrs. Thomas and Breinl, of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, two years ago discovered and published the fact that an arsenical aniline product known as “atoxyl” when injected into patients suffering from Sleeping Sickness destroys the parasite and promises to be a cure for this terrible infection. Experiments are in progress in many quarters in regard to this treatment, but certainty can only be arrived at by prolonged observation of the patients. The newspapers have lately, in error, attributed this discovery to Dr. Robert Koch of Berlin, who has merely confirmed the observations of the earlier workers.--E. R. L.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The foundation of the Royal Society of London is most intimately connected with the University of Oxford. Dr. Wallis, an original member, writes:--‘I take its first ground and foundation to have been in London about the year 1645, when Dr. Wilkins and others met weekly at a certain day and hour.... About the year 1648-9 some of our company were removed to Oxford; first Dr. Wilkins, then I, and soon after Dr. Goddard. Those in London continued to meet there as before (and we with them, when we had occasion to be there), and those of us at Oxford; with Dr. Ward (since Bishop of Salisbury), Dr. Ralph Bathurst (now President of Trinity College in Oxford), Dr. Petty (since Sir William Petty), Dr. Willis (then an eminent physician in Oxford), and divers others, continued such meetings in Oxford and brought those studies into fashion there; meetings first at Dr. Petty’s lodgings (in an apothecarie’s house) because of the convenience of inspecting drugs and the like, as there was occasion; and after his remove to Ireland (though not so constantly) at the lodgings of Dr. Wilkins, then Warden of Wadham College, and after his removal to Trinity College in Cambridge, at the lodgings of the Honourable Mr. Robert Boyle, then resident for divers years in Oxford.... In the meanwhile our company at Gresham College being much again increased by the accession of divers eminent and noble persons, upon his Majesty’s return, we were (about the beginning of the year 1662) by his Majesty’s grace and favour incorporated by the name of the Royal Society.’

[2] See, however, the letter from the _Times_, reprinted on p. 62.

[3] There is a tendency among writers on Variation, as affording the opportunity for the operation of Natural Selection, to assume that the variations presented by organisms are minute variations in every direction around a central point. Those observers who have done useful work in showing the definite and limited character of organic variations have very generally assumed that they are opposing a commonly held opinion that variation is of this equally distributed character. I cannot find that Mr. Darwin made any such assumption; and it is certain, and must on reflection have been recognized by all naturalists, that the variations by the selection and intensification of which natural selection has produced distinct forms or species, and in the course of time altogether new groups of plants and animals, are strictly limited to definite lines rendered possible, and alone possible, by the constitution of the living matter of the parental organism. We have no reason to suppose that the offspring of a beetle could in the course of any number of generations present variations on which selection could operate so as to eventually produce a mammalian vertebrate; or that, in fact, the general result of the process of selection of favourable variations in the past has not been _ab initio_ limited by the definite and restricted possibilities characteristic of the living substance of the parental organisms of each divergent line or branch of the pedigree.

[4] See p. 62.

[5] M. Paul Bourget of the Académie Française, is not only a charming writer of modern ‘novels,’ but claims to be a ‘psychologist,’ a title which perhaps may be conceded to every author who writes of human character. His works are so deservedly esteemed, and his erudition is as a rule, so unassailable, that in selecting him as an example of the frequent misrepresentation, among literary men, of Darwin’s doctrine, I trust that my choice may be regarded as a testimony of my admiration for his art. In his novel _Un Divorce_, published in 1904, M. Bourget, says: ‘La lutte entre les espèces, cette inflexible loi de l’univers animal, a sa correspondance exacte dans le monde des idées. Certaines mentalités constituent de véritables espèces intellectuelles qui ne peuvent pas durer à côté les unes des autres’ (Edition Plon, p. 317). This inflexible law of the animal universe, the struggle between species, is one which is quite unknown to zoologists. The ‘struggle for existence,’ to which Darwin assigned importance, is not a struggle between different species, but one between closely similar _members of the same species_. The struggle between species is by no means universal, but in fact very rare. The preying of one species on another is a moderated affair of balance and adjustment which may be described rather as an accommodation than as a struggle.

A more objectionable misinterpretation of the naturalists’ doctrine of the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence is that made by journalists and literary politicians, who declare, according to their political bias, either that science rightly teaches that the gross quality measured by wealth and strength alone can survive and should therefore alone be cultivated, or that science (and especially Darwinism) has done serious injury to the progress of mankind by authorizing this teaching. Both are wrong, and owe their error to self-satisfied flippancy and traditional ignorance in regard to nature-knowledge and the teaching of Darwin. The ‘fittest’ does not mean the ‘strongest.’ The causes of survival under Natural Selection are very far indeed from being rightly described as mere strength, nor are they baldly similar to the power of accumulating wealth. Frequently in Nature the more obscure and feeble survive in the struggle because of their modesty and suitability to given conditions, whilst the rich are sent empty away and the mighty perish by hunger.

[6] A short discussion of this subject and the introduction of the term ‘educability’ was published in a paper by me entitled ‘The Significance of the Increased Size of the Cerebrum in recent as compared with extinct Mammalia,’ Cinquantenaire de la Société de Biologie, Paris, 1899, pp. 48-51.

It has been pointed out to me by my friend Dr. Andrews, of the Geological Department of the British Museum, that the brain cavity of the elephants was already of relatively large size in the Eocene members of that group, which may be connected with the persistence of these animals through subsequent geological periods.

[7] It would be an error to maintain that the process of Natural Selection is entirely in abeyance in regard to Man. In an interesting book, _The Present Evolution of Man_, Dr. Archdall Reid has shown that in regard to zymotic diseases, and also in regard to the use of dangerous drugs such as alcohol and opium, there is first of all the acquirement of immunity by powerful races of men through the survival among them of those strains tolerant of the disease or of the drug, and secondly, the introduction of those diseases and drugs by the powerful immune race, in its migrations, to races not previously exposed either to the diseases or the drugs, and a consequent destruction of the invaded race. The survival of the fittest is, in these cases, a survival of the tolerant and eventually of the immune.

[8] ‘Religion means the knowledge of our destiny and of the means of fulfilling it.’--_Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton sometime Bishop of London_, vol. ii. p. 195.

[9] This has been established in the case of the _Trypanosoma Brucei_, a minute parasite living in the blood of big game in south-east Africa, amongst which it is disseminated by a blood-sucking fly, the _Glossina morsitans_ or Tsetze fly. The parasite appears to do little or no harm to the native big game, but causes a deadly disease both in the horses and cattle introduced by Europeans and in the more anciently introduced native cattle (of Indian origin). Similar cases are found where a disease germ (such as that of measles) produces but a small degree of sickness and mortality in a population long associated with it, but is deadly to a human community to which it is a new-comer. Thus Europeans have introduced measles with deadly results in the South Sea Islands. A similar kind of difficulty, of which many might be cited, is brought about by man’s importations and exportations of useful plants. He thus brought the Phylloxera to Europe, not realizing before hand that this little parasitic bug, though harmless to the American vine, which puts out new shoots on its roots when the insect injures the old ones, is absolutely deadly to the European vine, which has not acquired the simple but all-important mode of growth by which the American vine is rendered safe. Thus, too, he took the coffee-plant to Ceylon, and found his plantations suddenly devastated by a minute mould, the _Himileia vastatrix_, which had lived very innocently before that in the Cingalese forests, but was ready to burst into rapacious and destructive activity when the new unadjusted coffee-trees were imported by man and presented in carefully crowded plantations to its unrestrained infection.

[10] The phosphorescent disease of the sand-hopper (_Talitrus_) is described by Giard and Billet in a paper entitled ‘Observations sur la maladie phosphorescente des Talitres et autres Crustacés,’ in the memoirs of the Société de Biologie, Oct. 19, 1889. Billet subsequently gave a further account of this organism, and named it _Bacillus Giardi_--after Professor Giard of Paris. (Bulletins scientifiques de la France et de la Belgique, xxi. 1898, p. 144).

It appears that the parasite is transmitted from one individual to another in coition. The specimens studied by Giard and Billet were obtained at Wimereux near Boulogne. I found the disease very abundant at Ouistreham near Caen in the summer of 1900. I have not observed it nor heard of its occurrence on the English coast. Sea-water commonly contains a free-living phosphorescent bacterium which can be cultivated in flasks of liquid food so as to give rich growths which glow like a lamp when the flask is agitated so as to expose the contents to oxidation. This bacterium is not, however, the cause of the ‘phosphorescence’ of the sea often seen on our coasts. That is due in most cases to a much larger organism, as big as a small pin’s head, and known as _Noctiluca miliaris_.

[11] As little is the question of the use and abuse of food and drink dealt with, as yet, by civilized man. As in many other matters man has carried into his later crowded, artificial, nature-controlling life habits and tendencies derived from savage prehistoric days, so has he perpetuated ways of feeding which are mere traditions from his early ‘animal’ days, and have never been seriously called in question and put to proof. The persistence under new conditions of either habit or structure which belonged to old conditions may be attended with great danger and difficulty to an organism which changes, as man does, with great rapidity important features in its general surroundings and mode of life. This is in effect Metschnikoff’s doctrine of ‘désharmonies.’ It is probable that in very early days when a tribe of primitive men killed a mammoth, they all rushed on to the dead monster and gorged as much of its flesh as they could swallow (cooked or possibly uncooked). They had to take in enough to last for another week or two--that is to say, until another large animal should be trapped and slain. Accordingly he who could eat most would be strongest and best able to seize a good share when the next opportunity arrived, and it naturally became considered an indication of strength, vigour, and future prosperity to be capable of gorging large quantities of food. By means of the phrases ‘enjoying a good appetite,’ or ‘a good trencherman,’ or other such approving terms, civilized society still encourages the heavy feeder. The lower classes always consider a ravenous appetite to be an indication of strength and future prosperity in a child. Most healthy men, and even many women, in Western Europe, attack their food and swallow it without sufficient mastication, and as though they did not hope to get another chance of feeding for a week or two to come. Medical men have never ventured to investigate seriously whether civilized man is doing best for his health in behaving like a savage about his food. It is their business to attend to the patient with a disordered digestion, but not to experiment upon the amount of food of various kinds which the modern man should swallow in order to avoid indigestion and yet supply his alimentary needs. No individual can possibly pay medical men to make these observations. It is the business of the State to do so, because such knowledge is not only needed by the private citizen, but is of enormous importance in the management of armies and navies, in the victualling of hospitals, asylums, and prisons. Thousands of tons of preserved meat have been wasted in recent wars because the reckless and ignorant persons who purchased the preserved meat to feed soldiers had never taken the trouble to ascertain whether preserved meat can be eaten by a body of men as a regular and chief article of diet. It appears that certain methods of preserving meat render it innutritious and impossible as a diet.

It is probable from recent experiment that we all, except those unfortunate few who do not get enough, eat about twice as much as we require, and that the superfluous quantity swallowed not only is wasted, but is actually a cause of serious illness and suffering. It surely is an urgent matter that these questions about food should be thoroughly investigated and settled. In the opinion of the most eminent physiologist of the United States (Professor Bowditch), we shall never establish a rational and healthy mode of feeding ourselves until we give up the barbarous but to some persons pleasant custom of converting the meal into a social function; we are thus tempted into excess. Only long and extensive experiment can provide us with definite and conclusive information on this matter, which is far more important than, at first sight, it seems to be. And similarly with regard to the admittedly serious question of alcohol--only very extensive and authoritative experiment will suffice to show mankind whether it is a wise and healthy thing to take it in small quantities, the exact limits of which must be stated, or to reject it altogether.

[12] It is, perhaps, needful to point out that what is aimed at is that the education of all the youth of the country, both of pass-men and of class-men, of girls as well as of boys, of the rich as well as of the poor, should be primarily directed to imparting an acquaintance with what we already possess in respect of knowledge of Nature, and the training of the pupil so as to enable him or her (_a_) to make use of that knowledge, and (_b_) to take part in gaining new knowledge of Nature, at this moment needed but non-existent. This does not involve the complete exclusion of other subjects of instruction, to which about one-third of the time and effort of school and college life might be devoted.

[13] I desire especially to draw the attention of those who have misunderstood and misrepresented my estimate of the importance of the study of History, to this paragraph.--E.R.L.

[14] The practical steps which would correspond to the views enunciated in this discourse are two. First, the formation of an educational association to establish one or more schools and colleges in which nature-knowledge and training in nature-searching should be the chief matters to which attention would be given, whilst reasonable methods would also be employed for implanting in the minds of the students a love and understanding of literature and other forms or art. Those who desired such an education for their children would support these schools and colleges, just as in the days of Anglican exclusiveness the Nonconformists and Roman Catholics supported independent educational institutions. The second practical step would be the formation of a political union which would make due respect to efficiency, that is to say, to a knowledge of Nature, a test question in all political contests. No candidate for Parliament would receive the votes of the union unless he were either himself educated in a knowledge of Nature or promised his support exclusively to ministers who would insist on the utilization of nature-knowledge in the administration of the great departments of State, and would take active measures of a financial character to develop with far greater rapidity and certainty than is at present the case, that inquiry into and control of Nature which is the indispensable factor in human welfare and progress. Such a programme will, I hope, at no distant date obtain the support of a sufficient number of parliamentary voters to raise political questions of a more genuine and interesting character than those which many find so tedious at the present moment.

[15] It seems necessary to emphasize that I here say merely that no “new support” is given to the notion of so-called telepathy, a support some persons have wrongly claimed. I do not say that the notion is rendered less likely to prove true than it was before.

[16] See the introduction to Part II. of a Treatise on Zoology. Edited by E. Ray Lankester (London: A. & C. Black).

[17] From the Jubilee volume of the Soc. de Biol. of Paris, 1899. Reprinted in _Nature_, vol. lxi., 1900, pp. 624, 625.

[18] I use the term ‘acquired’ without prejudice in the sense given to that word by Lamarck himself. It is of primary importance that those who follow this controversy should clearly understand what Lamarck pointed to by this word ‘acquired.’ Utter confusion and absurdity has resulted from a misunderstanding on this subject by some writers who deliberately call newly appearing congenital characters ‘acquired’ or ‘acquisitions.’

[19] _Nature_, vol. li., 1894, p. 127.

[20] In a review of Metschnikoff’s ‘Leçons sur l’Inflammation’ in _Nature_, 1899.

[21] See the next chapter, devoted to this subject.

[22] I had the honour and good fortune to found this association and to collect the funds so generously given to it--then for many years to act as its honorary secretary, to design and superintend the erection of the laboratory and to organize, in conjunction with my scientific colleagues, its staff, its scheme of work and government. On the death of our beloved president, Professor Huxley, I was elected as his successor, and still occupy that position.

[23] The disease has actually entered into the administrative area known as British East Africa, but has not made any rapid progress towards the coast. According to a report by Dr. Wiggins, the disease is confined in British East Africa, as in Uganda, to those areas in which _Glossina palpalis_ occurs.

[24] Only last year (1905) Lieut. Tulloch, of the Army Medical Department, who with Professor Minchin was engaged in carrying on further researches for the Royal Society on the sleeping sickness at Entebbe in Uganda, became infected by the trypanosome, probably through an unobserved bite by a tsetze fly, and died of the disease soon after his return to England.

[25] Professor Minchin investigated this subject during 1905 in Uganda whither he went on behalf of the Tropical Diseases Committee of the Royal Society. He did not discover anything corresponding to the development of the malarial parasite in the gnat, but his investigations are not yet brought to a conclusion (December, 1906).

[26] Dr. Schaudinn died in 1906. He was only 35 years of age.

[27] Since this was written a professorship of Protozoology has with the assistance of the Colonial Office been established in the University of London. This is a first step towards a recognition of the duty of the State in this matter.

[28] See footnote on p. 179.

* * * * * *

Transcriber’s note:

The repeated caption heading ‘Fig. x.’ has been removed in Figures
1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 12 and 44.

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained: for example,
sleeping sickness, sleeping-sickness; kosmos; acquirement; employés;
imbibition.

Pg 84 (Fig. 11): ‘at 3186 (Soddy)’ replaced by ‘at 318·6 (Soddy)’.

Pg 91 (Fig. 12): ‘the line A A)’ replaced by ‘the line A A,’.

Pg 95: ‘Brunettière and his’ replaced by ‘Brunetière and his’.

Pg 146 (Fig. 46): ‘T. Brucii’ replaced by ‘T. Brucei’.

Pg 148: ‘Spirocheta pallida’ replaced by ‘Spirochæta pallida’.

Pg 149: ‘of the commuity,’ replaced by ‘of the community,’.

Pg 177: ‘miscroscopic animals’ replaced by ‘microscopic animals’.