Health > Investigations on human trypanosomiasis in Mozambique

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Ferreira dos Santos, the Chief of the Department of Medicine and Hygiene, has
invited them to carry out this work, and I have recently received letters from these
former members of my mission, informing me that they are leaving immediately
for that district and have been authorised to purchase the necessary material.
I was thus able to carry out, in this connection, the decision of the Minister of
the Colonies and to leave one of the new missions duly established.
I consider that work in the eastern zone of the Nyasa Company’s territory
should be carried out under the immediate direction of Maximo Prates, who has
already returned to his post as Director of the Central Laboratory of Lourengo
Marques. In view of his excellent work for the Entebbe International Commission,
this gentleman is eminently qualified to take charge of this new mission — a post of
great responsibility.
Proposal for the Enlargement of the Central Laboratory at LouRENgo
Marques and its Conversion into a Medical Research Institute.
The various problems connected with tropical diseases should be studied with
a view to their solution, since, notwithstanding the active research undertaken by
all colonial Powers, there are many diseases which are still obscure, either, as in the
case of bilious hsemoglobinuric fever, from the point of view of etiology, or as regards
therapy, or the manner in which they are conveyed. The institute should, of course,
give every assistance to clinics, whether hospital or private, and should co-operate
in health matters, criminal investigations, etc., by carrying out any necessary
laboratory analyses. Its organisers should never forget, however, that the activities
of the personnel should not be confined to carrying out these analyses. It should
be possible for them to devote a great deal of their time to the scientific work mentioned
above, so that our country may undertake similar investigations to those which are
constantly being carried out by other nations. Each of the sections mentioned should
have its own director and assistant directors, together with a sufficient number of
laboratory assistants and workers to enable all necessary analyses to be undertaken
and vaccines and therapeutic sera to be prepared, without prejudice to the principal
object — i.e., the work of scientific research — for which the director of each section
should be specially responsible. The institute should be controlled by the medical
director of one of the sections, who should inform the Chief of the Health Department
and the Directorate of the Hospital which branches of research or investigation are
being dealt with by each of the sections. In conjunction with the directors of the
other sections, the head of the Institute should draw up an annual report on the
work. This report should be published in Portuguese and in French or English,
for distribution to all the scientific institutes in our country, all the health delegations
and sub-delegations in our colonies and by foreign institutes dealing specially with
problems connected with colonisation ; in exchange, the institute would receive the
publications of these various centres of scientific research, which would enrich its
library and help it to decide on the course of its enquiries. Each section should, of
course, have its own private library for consultation purposes and should be supplied
with the most important national or foreign periodicals dealing with its special