Victory Over Tsetse ?
Whether or not the victory over the tsetse fly claimed by the Under-Secretary for the Colonies in announcing the discovery of the new drug antricyde by a group of I.C.I. chemists proves as sweeping as the first accounts of the drug suggest, there can be no question that a prospect of immense importance is opened up. The calamitous effects of the attacks of the fly on cattle and other forms of animal life is felt over the whole of Central Africa from coast to coast, from as far south as the frontier of the South African Union to as far north as a line running eastward from Sierra Leone. The scourge is already being fought by a variety of means—by the drastic measure
of destroying wholesale the bush that harbours the fly, by importing parasites to prey on it, by spraying from the air. The new drug, it is claimed, will immunise by injection. U that claim is sustained, the economic future of vast tracts of Africa will be revolutionised. Too much, perhaps, has been said about providing a source of meat supply that will rival the Argentine. That development lies years ahead, if it comes at all. A more immediate result, and one more immediately beneficial to Africa itself, will be the effect on child mortality of milk production over vast areas where owing to the tsetse cow-milk is practically non-existent today. More information about the new drug, and the results of actual experiments in the infected areas, will be anxiously awaited. Africa may yet be the scene of some of the greatest achievements of modern science, to the immense advantage of that great continent and all the world.
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