Abstract
IN the latest annual report of the medical services of Sierra Leone, the director, Dr. W. P. H. Lightbody records a satisfactory state of general health among a population of about 100,000 and an absence of major epidemics. Nutrition in the undisturbed tribal communities is fairly satisfactory, but in Freetown, the capital, with a population of 55,000, and the adjacent villages there is some evidence of qualitative defects in diet, mainly an insufficiency of protein, Among the 250 European officials resident, the average annual sick leave per resident was 6˙46 days, almost exactly the same as that of the 1,000 African officials. Only 3 European officials were invalided home during the year. Among the 495 European non-official residents the total number who went on sick leave was 73. The most frequent causes of death among the population in Freetown was malaria, which causes nearly twice as many deaths as tuberculosis, the second largest cause of mortality. Malaria also accounts for 43 per cent of the hospital cases in the colony.
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Health in Sierra Leone. Nature 147, 55 (1941). https://doi.org/10.1038/147055c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/147055c0