4 matches out of all 3,298, 1 to 4 displayed.
| 1907 | Bagida ColonyThe first report in April 1907 enumerates the few patients who presented themselves or were "ordered" there by the district officer: a total of 20 with leprosy and 13 were considered to be suspects. Twelve ran away in the night, three returned. Of the sick, one died. Many of those capable of work ran away soon, so that four remained, to work on the land. After much persuasion and in the expectation of gifts, they planted maize and ground nuts. (Translated and summarised from Wolfgang U Eckart. Medizin and Kolonialimperialismus: Deutschland 1884-1945,p. 152-161) [Leprosarium] [Togo] |
| 1908 | Bagida ColonyBy April 1908 there were only fourteen patients in the far too generously-planned facility. The Medical Report for Togo had to admit that the patients felt their isolation as a hardship, and saw no improvement in their suffering … and would therefore always take themselves off to the interior again. The memoranda described more benignly the tendencies of the leprosy victims to escape, saying that the inmates "generally did not gladly remain in the facility". A more decisive attitude than the former liberal approach to coming and going was officially pronounced, in which it was forbidden for patients and suspects to leave their section. Possibly the ordinance to reduce freedoms was intended more to impress those in Berlin than it could those in Bagida. In the colonial periphery one was more inclined to supervise the isolation with as much encouragement as possible, since living conditions or inmates were thoroughly liberal; thus the distant doctor in Lome could grant healthy visitors or perhaps mothers a short-term or longer-term stay in the leprosy village "to care for of the little child". The sick and suspects were given a mat, towel, blanket, mosquito net, cooking pot and bowl. Only those too ill to work were given a daily allowance of 20 pence a day - the others received nothing as they were expected to harvest food from their farms, and give up their earnings from excess production for the other inmates, against minimal payment for the upkeep of the village. Any infringements of regulations by those able to work were punished by farmwork and work for the overall needs of the village. A nurse, assisted by a guard, kept records of supervision of the village, of medications, numbers of inmates, of payments made. Efforts to treat patients with Nastin, and with the herbal extracts Chaulmoogra oil and Balsamum Gurguni were unsuccessful, so that medical attention was limited to observations and symptomatic treatments. The stringent criteria laid down for total cures showed a long-term optimisim - there was not a single case of a cure. From 1908, the number of village residents grew to 38, hardly worthy of a claim of success. The occasional distribution of "treats" such as tobacco and sugar had no effect on the inmates’ passive resistance to carrying out the necessary farm work. The doctor and administrative officers were helpless in the face of the pressure by the sick to visit their healthy relatives . Under such conditions, attempts at treatment were destined to fail. Nastin was said at first to have shown some signs of the retreat of the disease, but a year later was reported to have had no effects on symptoms; it had, however, had life-threatening side effects in only one case and was well tolerated by children. (Translated and summarised from Wolfgang U Eckart, Medizin and Kolonialimperialismus: Deutschland 1884-1945 pp 152-161) [Leprosarium] [Togo] |
| 1910 | Bagida ColonyThe government meanwhile had abandoned its earlier liberal approach to the isolation of leprosy patients, as it had in control measures against sleeping sickness and small pox, as seen in its ordinance in Colonial-Legislation 13 (1909), where the option of compulsory isolation and penalties for non-reporting were codified. This was totally ineffectual: by 1910, 16 of 38 villagers had escaped, 6 had died and only 7 new cases were registered. So while the Model Leprosy home was taking giagantic steps towards its breakdown in Lomé, no countrywide survey of level of spread of the disease could be made yet, although in some District Offices, the lists of potential patients were at least initiated. When the number of patients shrank to 18 (after 11 new cases, 14 absconders and one death were calculated), Krüger had no option but to recognize the situation, though not without attempting to attribute the now demonstrable failure of the project to ethnic and geographical factors of the country. (Translated and summarised from Wolfgang U Eckart, Medizin and Kolonialimperialismus: Deutschland 1884-1945 pp 152-161) [Leprosarium] [Togo] |
| 1912 | Bagida ColonyThe Annual Medical Report of 1912-13 no longer mentioned the leprosy home near Bagida - signalling the failure of leprosy control in Togo, the Model Colony. Graf von Zech summarised "the efforts of the Togo doctors to provide a home-like environment, to recognize the longings of the patients for family contacts, to avoid imposing on inmates a sense of imprisonment, and the insurmountable obstacle of the patients’ inability to accept internment - the life-long loss of family contact which drove them irresistibly to flight. 'If only a genius could succeed in developing the long wished-for cure for leprosy'" (Jahrbuch über die Deutschen Kolonien 5 (1912),p.128 cited in Wolfgang U Eckart, Medizin and Kolonialimperialismus: Deutschland 1884-1945 pp 152-161) [Leprosarium] [Togo] |