LEPROSY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1737, 11 January 1888, Page 3

LEPROSY.

In a latter to this " Timea," Arohdeacon Wright calle attention to the rapid spread of leprosy and to the need for precautionary measures against the disease., He says :— In all parts, of the world attention is being directed to leprosy, for this good reason — leprosy is spreading fas and wide, and m acme regions with a fearful rapidity. Forty years ago the malady was unknown ii California, New Brunswick, the Cape of Good Hop?, and the Sandwioh Islands; but now so dominant is the disease that they all have leper settlements and leper hospitals, aod In the Sandwich Islands so severe is the ' j visitation that there are 800 lepers segregated at Molokue, The Chinese are swarming all over the world, and, living a* they do, olosely packed and careless of all sanitary protection, their buts are especially calculated to hasten the incubation of a disease the germ of which was brought by them from China. These Celestials mingle freely with Europeans ; indeed, so also do the leprous m every quarter of the globe, and what la the result 1 Leprosy is showing Itself so frequently and so continuously m Europe that the most learned and exper ienced physicians are beooming alarmed Leprosy, they maintain, Is strictly man's disease, and wherever lepers travel there invariably leprosy is m due aeaa n conveyed to their fellow-men, Only a few weeks ago (October 11) Dr Ernest B9snier, addre sing the French Aodemy of Medicine, of whloh he is a highly distinguished member, gives the folio wicg sad and startling facts ; — " There is not at this moment m Paris a medical man devoted to dermatology who has not lepers among bis patients, and who does not see every year a certain number of new cases, Kuropetns who have caught their disease m leprous countries or inhabitants of such countries tryiDg by change of olimate to obtain bodi'y relief. Every year soldiers, sailors, merchants, Bisters of charity, and others bring back with them the malady into Franco, and m Paris the St. Louis Hospital receives* ponstantly lepeis.in all stages of the disease. Only recently M. yidal repelved under his oare a soldier who had contracted leprosy m Cayenne, while I myself admitted a sailor who had retnrned from Madagascar. " The doctor then names several other cases, ending with a young Frenchman who had been employed m the Consulate at Rio Janeiro j another born at Port-au-Prince, cf healthy parents ; and an Italian merchant jast returned a leper from Buenos Ayree. The same experience precisely is that of Dr Bresnler's colleagues of the St Louis Hospital and of a large number of hydiologists, especially at Bagoerea de Luohon, Uriage, La Bourbule, &o. In concluding, the Archdeacon states that oases of leprosy are not so rare as is generally suppoied. At this moment there are lepers m the hospitals of London, Dublin and Glasgow.