For a historian interested in African medical and social history it is difficult to imagine a more interesting and exciting source material than authentic hospital documents and records. Sources such as these are not always available or readily accessible to researchers. Hospital records dating from the nineteenth century are quite rare in Africa, and the use of more modern and contemporary records, because of their intimacy, is often restricted by legislation. For these reasons the documentary material stored at hospitals has rarely been used as source material by social, medical and demographic historians. Nevertheless, one collection of hospital documents with relatively easy access for researchers is the C.M.S. Mengo Hospital Case Notes and Admission Registers located in the Sir Albert Cook Medical Library at Mulago, Kampala, Uganda.