Annual medical report / Northern Nigeria.

  • Northern Nigeria (Nigeria). Medical Department.
Date:
[1910]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual medical report / Northern Nigeria. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    15/28 (page 15)
    2: To try to help on the efforts to give each European a furnished house. Where there are )ermanent houses, the majority of men have only me appartment; but a large proportion of the men n the bush live in thatched native mud huts, with nud floors and simple holes in the wall by way ol ioors and windows. There is a paucity of furniture in most places: and 1 good many men are supplied with none at all- Each European ought to have a house, however imall, to himself/ for no one, who has not lived undei he conditions inevitable here, can have any concep- ion of the injury, to health, temper, and professional efficiency, caused by the suppressed irritation which irises from the stabling up together cf two or more mcongenial companions. 3. To secure the necessary funds to plant out every station with Dhub grass—short running grass vhich chokes out every other form of vegetation—- tnd thus settle the clearing problem once for all. 4. To represent the necessity of increasing the lumber of passenger steamers on the Niger. The existing steamers are often overcrowded, with Europeans on the upper decks and with Natives on m the lower: while certain African non-natives from the Coast are permitted to travel on the upper decks with the Europeans. The steamers are over-wrought; they cannot be laid up sufficiently often for adequate repairs and effective cleansing; clouds of mosquitoes are concealed in the dark damp holes and forecastles, by day, and emerge in legions, by night; the mass of natives on the lower decks and the occasional African non-natives on the upper decks are the natural complements of the mosquitoes; and many new-comers to the country often contract their first malarial infections on the journey up river. If Yellow Fever were to obtain a footing at Burutu, these river steamers in their present condition, would furnish a ready means for its importation to Northern Nigeria. 5. To have the entire beach at Burutu put under the same Sanitary and Administrative authority. 6. To have it finally laid down, by legal enact¬ ment, that no European who is not an officer in the service of the Government—whether traders, mission¬ ary, or anything else,—no Oriental, and no African non-native shall be permitted to reside or to hold premises within the confines of a native town which is not inside of the boundary of a declared canton¬ ment. This is a piece of legislation which is absolutely necessary on sanitary grounds. Non-natives are, of course, under direct adminis¬ tration : while natives are not—except, of course, in cantonments. A Sanitary or Medical Officer cannot interfere with the affairs of a native town, except through— or by the consent, intimated formally to the native ruler of the town, in each special instance, of-—the Resident. This limitation of the power of the Sanitary or Medical Officer is perfectly just and equitable: for, in conformity with the principle of indirect adminis¬ tration, there can be no communication with a native ruler, except through the Political Officer; and this limitation is really a help—in no way, a hindrance—to sanitary activity. But, were non¬ natives residing in the town, they would not be the subjects of the Emir; but subjects of the Crown: besides which, if so disposed, they could easily find means of persuading the native ruler to permit them to do things which he would never allow his own subjects to do. 1 he special permissions indicated might very well call for the immediate intervention of the sanitary or medical officer: with the result that he would either have to ignore things which it was his duty not to ignore or court a break of these harmonious relations with the Political Officers upon which the facility and efficiency of his work depended. 7. To make the rule of the minimum distance, between European habitations and native quarters, which is permissible, apply to non-official as well as the official Europeans. There is nothing sacrosanct about an official, which makes his good health more precious than that of a non-official: and non-officials are quite as vulnerable to insanitary surroundings as are officials. Young Europeans come out to West Africa as clerks and assistants in factories and are liable to be subjected to sanitary conditions under which it is a foregone conclusion that their health will be seriously impaired; but they fear to complain: thinking, rightly or wrongly, that they will be dismissed if they do. The enforcing of this rule would end all this. 8. lo have the reports of individual tours of inspection sent home to the Secretary of State. The distances travelled, the number of places visited, and the matters dealt with in the course of a whole year are apt to result either in rendering an annual Sanitary Report so brief as to be obscure, or so long that it is not likely to court attention. 9. To have the services of the dredger requistioned to fill in, with sand from the river, the dangerous marshes at Baro and Ibi. (Sgd.) M. Cameron Blair, Senior Sanitary Officer.