Cuthbert Christy (1863 – 29 May 1932) was an English doctor and zoologist who undertook extensive explorations of Central Africa during the first part of the 20th century. He was known for his work on
sleeping sickness
African trypanosomiasis, also known as African sleeping sickness or simply sleeping sickness, is an insect-borne parasitic infection of humans and other animals. It is caused by the species ''Trypanosoma brucei''. Humans are infected by two typ ...
, and for the Christy Report on slavery in
Liberia
Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...
in the 1920s.
Early years
Cuthbert Christy was born in 1863, son of Robert Christy of
Chelmsford
Chelmsford () is a city in the City of Chelmsford district in the county of Essex, England. It is the county town of Essex and one of three cities in the county, along with Southend-on-Sea and Colchester. It is located north-east of London a ...
.
He was educated at Olivers Mount School, in
Scarborough, North Yorkshire
Scarborough () is a seaside town in the Borough of Scarborough in North Yorkshire, England. Scarborough is located on the North Sea coastline. Historic counties of England, Historically in the North Riding of Yorkshire, the town lies between 10 ...
, then won a Mackenzie bursary to the
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...
.
He graduated in 1892.
He travelled widely in
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
and the
West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...
between 1892 and 1895.
He was senior medical officer to the second battalion, West African
Field Force
A field force in British Army, British and Indian Army military parlance is a combined arms land force operating under actual or assumed combat circumstances, usually for the length of a specific military campaign. It is used by other nations, but ...
in
Northern Nigeria
Northern Nigeria was an autonomous division within Nigeria, distinctly different from the southern part of the country, with independent customs, foreign relations and security structures. In 1962 it acquired the territory of the United Kingd ...
from 1898 to 1900.
He was then appointed special medical officer for plague duty in
Bombay
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...
, working in the Plague Laboratory in that city.
African travels
![Sleeping sickness commission photos Wellcome L0049113](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Sleeping_sickness_commission_photos_Wellcome_L0049113.jpg)
Christy became a highly skilled naturalist.
In 1902 he was chosen as a member of a three-man
British government commission to investigate
trypanosomiasis
Trypanosomiasis or trypanosomosis is the name of several diseases in vertebrates caused by parasitic protozoan trypanosomes of the genus ''Trypanosoma''. In humans this includes African trypanosomiasis and Chagas disease. A number of other diseas ...
(sleeping sickness) in Uganda.
The other two were
George Carmichael Low
George Carmichael Low (14 October 1872 – 31 July 1952) was a Scottish parasitologist.
Biography
He was born in Monifieth, Forfarshire, Scotland, the son of Samuel Miller Low, a manufacturer of flax machinery and educated at Madras College ...
and
Aldo Castellani
Aldo Castellani, KCMG (8 September 1874 – 3 October 1971) was an Italian pathologist and bacteriologist
A bacteriologist is a microbiologist, or similarly trained professional, in bacteriology -- a subdivision of microbiology that studies b ...
.
An epidemic of the disease was raging in Uganda, and almost 14,000 people had died by the spring of 1902.
The three-man reached
Kisumu
Kisumu ( ) is the List of cities and towns in Kenya by population, third-largest city in Kenya after the capital, Nairobi, and the coastal city of Mombasa (census 2019). It is the third-largest city after Kampala and Mwanza in the Lake Victor ...
in July 1902.
Christie undertook a survey to create a map showing where the disease was found, travelling from place to place, taking blood samples, recording symptoms and trapping mosquitoes.
Christy was a member of a team sponsored by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine that arrived in the
Congo Free State
''(Work and Progress)
, national_anthem = Vers l'avenir
, capital = Vivi Boma
, currency = Congo Free State franc
, religion = Catholicism (''de facto'')
, leader1 = Leopo ...
on 23 September 1903 to assess public health, and sleeping sickness in particular. His companions were
Joseph Everett Dutton
Joseph Everett Dutton (9 September 1874 – 27 February 1905) was a British parasitologist who discovered one of the trypanosomes that cause sleeping sickness. He died in the Congo Free State at the age of 30 from tick fever, or African relapsing ...
and
John Lancelot Todd
John Lancelot Todd (10 September 1876 – 27 August 1949) was a Canadian physician and parasitologist.
Early years
John Lancelot Todd was born on 10 September 1876 in Victoria, British Columbia.
He was of Anglo-Irish origins.
His father was Jacob ...
, and they were joined in the Congo by
Inge-Valdemar Heiberg
Inge Valdemar Heiberg (11 October 1861 – 1 July 1920) was a Norwegian physician who served as director of medicine in Belgian Congo from 1911 to 1920.
He was born in Christiania as a son of judge Edvard Omsen Heiberg (1829–1884) and Minna Rod ...
.
The team spent nine months in the Lower Congo, then on 30 June 1904 began investigating upstream as far as
Kasongo
Kasongo, also known as Piani Kasongo, is a town and a Territory, located in the Maniema Province of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Geography
Kasongo lies east of the Lualaba River, northwest of its confluence with the Luama River ...
.
They returned to
Boma on 27 February 1905. The emphasis was on the health of Europeans. Despite covering a large area, the expedition did not investigate the huge tracts where few or no Europeans were present.
Christy worked in
Ceylon
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
in 1906, in
Uganda
}), is a landlocked country in East Africa
East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...
and East Africa from 1906 to 1909, and then in
Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
, the
Gold Coast
Gold Coast may refer to:
Places Africa
* Gold Coast (region), in West Africa, which was made up of the following colonies, before being established as the independent nation of Ghana:
** Portuguese Gold Coast (Portuguese, 1482–1642)
** Dutch G ...
and the
Cameroons
British Cameroon or the British Cameroons was a British Empire, British League of Nations mandate, mandate territory in British West Africa, formed of the Northern Cameroons and Southern Cameroons. Today, the Northern Cameroons forms parts of th ...
from 1909 to 1910. In 1911 he published ''The African rubber industry and Funtumia elastica ("kickxia")''.
Between 1911 and 1914 Christy worked for the Belgian government in the
Belgian Congo
The Belgian Congo (french: Congo belge, ; nl, Belgisch-Congo) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960. The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964.
Colo ...
, mostly studying sleeping sickness.
For more than a year he explored the forests to the west of Mbeni and the
Rwenzori Mountains
The Ruwenzori, also spelled Rwenzori and Rwenjura, are a range of mountains in eastern equatorial Africa, located on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The highest peak of the Ruwenzori reaches , and the range' ...
.
During
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
(1914–1918), between 1915 and 1916 he worked for the Sudan government in mapping the
Congo-Nile Divide
The Congo-Nile Divide (or Nile Congo Watershed) is the continental divide that separates the drainage basins of the Nile and Congo rivers.
It is about long.
There are several geologically and geographically distinct sections between the point on ...
, which divided the Congo from the Sudan.
In part to reduce the spread of disease, the colonial authorities had imposed increasing travel restrictions on the local people.
Christy observed that far more passports for cross-border travel were being issued by the Congolese authorities than by the Sudanese. He said that the main pretext was to hunt for a runaway woman, but the main reason was to trade in rubber.
In 1916 Christy was appointed Advisor for Malaria to the East African Expeditionary Force.
He was in charge of the military hospital in
Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam (; from ar, دَار السَّلَام, Dâr es-Selâm, lit=Abode of Peace) or commonly known as Dar, is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of Dar es Salaam Region. With a population of over s ...
, and then in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
.
Between 1920 and 1923 Christy explored the
Bahr el Ghazal Bahr el-Ghazal (Arabic بحر الغزال , also transliterated ''Bahr al-Ghazal'', ''Baḩr al-Ghazāl'', ''Bahr el-Gazel'', or versions of these without the hyphen) may refer to two distinct places, both named after ephemeral or dry rivers.
Chad ...
in what is now
South Sudan
South Sudan (; din, Paguot Thudän), officially the Republic of South Sudan ( din, Paankɔc Cuëny Thudän), is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the C ...
.
From 1925 to 1928 he was leader of an expedition arranged by the Natural History Museum to explore the
Tanganyika
Tanganyika may refer to:
Places
* Tanganyika Territory (1916–1961), a former British territory which preceded the sovereign state
* Tanganyika (1961–1964), a sovereign state, comprising the mainland part of present-day Tanzania
* Tanzania Main ...
lakes.
Christy was employed in
French Equatorial Africa
French Equatorial Africa (french: link=no, Afrique-Équatoriale française), or the AEF, was the federation of French colonial possessions in Equatorial Africa, extending northwards from the Congo River into the Sahel, and comprising what are ...
and
French West Africa
French West Africa (french: Afrique-Occidentale française, ) was a federation of eight French colonial territories in West Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan (now Mali), French Guinea (now Guinea), Ivory Coast, Upper Volta (now Burki ...
from 1928 to 1929.
Christy commission
In 1929 an American missionary in
Liberia
Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...
reported that Liberian officials were using soldiers to gather tribal people who were shipped to the island of
Fernando Po as forced labourers.
The Liberian government denied the charges and invited a
League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
commission of inquiry.
Cuthbert Christy headed the commission.
Charles S. Johnson, a black American, was the United States representative.
The former President
Arthur Barclay
Arthur Barclay (31 July 1854 – 10 July 1938) was the 15th president of Liberia from 1904 to 1912.
Early life and education
Barclay was born at Bridgetown, Barbados, on 31 July 1854, the tenth of twelve children of Anthony and Sarah Barcl ...
represented Liberia. The commission began work on 8 April 1930.
While Arthur Barclay remained in
Monrovia
Monrovia () is the capital city of the West African country of Liberia. Founded in 1822, it is located on Cape Mesurado on the Atlantic coast and as of the 2008 census had 1,010,970 residents, home to 29% of Liberia’s total population. As the ...
for reasons of health, after six weeks Christy and Johnston left the capital and travelled first together, then separately, into the interior where they took testimony. They returned in July and conducted further interviews.
Altogether the commission members heard 264 people including politicians, officials, chiefs and ordinary people.
The result of the inquiries was an outspoken report submitted in September 1930.
It found that the labourers had been recruited "under condition of criminal compulsion scarcely distinguishable from slave raiding and slave trading." "Forced or compulsory labour" had been used by the government of Liberia for purposes such as road and public utility construction, and "...in certain cases, labour recruited...for public purposes has been diverted to private use on the farms and plantations of high Government officials and private citizens."
The commission also found that as recently as 1928, Liberian Government officials and Frontier Force soldiers had been "...raiding and forcibly recruiting native boys for shipment to the island of Fernando Po (
Bioko
Bioko (; historically Fernando Po; bvb, Ëtulá Ëria) is an island off the west coast of Africa and the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea. Its population was 335,048 at the 2015 census and it covers an area of . The island is located of ...
)".
Landowners from the island had needed manual laborers and arranged to pay Liberian "recruiting agents", including the President's brother, for the shipment of 3000 boys."
As a result of the Christy report, President
Charles D. B. King
Charles Dunbar Burgess King (12 March 1875 – 4 September 1961) was a Liberian politician who served as the 17th president of Liberia from 1920 to 1930. He was of Americo-Liberian and Sierra Leone Creole descent. He was a member of the True Whig ...
and Vice-president
Allen N. Yancy both resigned.
Some authors feel that Christy was generally negative towards the role of the United States in Liberia, and interested in showing that the
Firestone Tire and Rubber Company
Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is a tire company founded by Harvey Firestone (1868–1938) in 1900 initially to supply solid rubber side-wire tires for fire apparatus, and later, pneumatic tires for wagons, buggies, and other forms of wheeled ...
was complicit in slaving.
Christie and Johnson disagreed in their interpretation of the findings, with Johnson saying that "His
hristy's... hysterical, extreme statements in summary fashion
ondemnedthe whole government and
alledeverything slavery, slave dealing, slave traffic, etc."
At root was a disagreement over whether the abuses could be remedied under black self-rule,
with Christy eventually coming round to Johnson's view that the country should remain independent. Although much of the work was done by the other team members, some felt that it was important to Christy to take most of the credit.
Death and legacy
Charles S. Johnson said soon after meeting him in 1930 that although he was 66 he "looks and has the heartiness of a man of 45."
Christy was also extremely vain.
He has been called "a most difficult and irascible man."
In 1932 Christy was in the Aka River region of the
Belgian Congo
The Belgian Congo (french: Congo belge, ; nl, Belgisch-Congo) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960. The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964.
Colo ...
. He was conducting zoological investigation for the Belgian government, and was in search of elephants.
He fired at a male buffalo. The wounded animal charged and gored him, and he later died of his wounds on 29 May 1932.
Taxon named in his honor
''
Naja christyi
''Naja christyi'' (formerly ''Boulengerina christyi)'', commonly known as the Congo water cobra or Christy's water cobra, is a species of venomous snakes belonging to the family Elapidae. The species is native to Sub-Saharan Africa.
This speci ...
'', commonly known as the Congo water cobra or Christy's water cobra, is named after him, as are ''
Chamaelycus
''Chamaelycus'' is a genus of snakes, commonly referred to as banded snakes, in the family Lamprophiidae. The genus is endemic to Central Africa.
Species
The following three species are recognized as being valid.. www.reptile-database.org.
*'' ...
christyi'' (Christy's banded snake) and ''
Polemon christyi'' (Christy's snake-eater).
Bibliography
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References
Notes
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Christy, Cuthbert
1863 births
1932 deaths
20th-century English medical doctors
English explorers
People from Chelmsford