ALL LEPERS SHOULD BE CURED

Evening Star, Issue 19801, 27 February 1928, Page 14

ALL LEPERS SHOULD BE CURED

It is no exaggeration to say that every ease of leprosy, if treated properly, that is, with due attention being given to exercise, good food, and an the other adjuncts to the chauimoogra treatment, should recover completely from the disease. While saying this wo have to recognise that the presentday treatment of leprosy is ,by no moans perfect, and that in spito of many encouraging results, failures arc often reported (writes Dr R. (1. Cochran, in tho annual report of the Mission to Lepers). But this is only to he exported; lor in a disease which runs such a protracted course, the stage at which the patient presents himself for treatment, li.s general health, and a hundred and one other factors have to be taken into consideration. Anything which reduces the vitality of the body mitigates against effective treatment. In spite, (hen, of pessimistic reports that, have been issued from time to time, there has been no other decade in the whole history of leprosy when hope has run so high, and when the massed results all over the world have justified such optimism. In India the mission maintains thirty-seven asylums and assists thirty-three others, all open to every caste and creed, having in all nearly seven thousand patients under its rare.