THE STAMPING OUT OF LEPROSY.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 449, 26 February 1890, Page 4

THE STAMPING OUT OF LEPROSY.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —None but those who have resided in countries where leprosy is a prevalent disease, can form any idea of its dreadful nature. It is not because it is a painful disease, for as it advances it becomes less and less painful, until it attacks in the very latest stage the stomach. It is not because of its being rapidly fatal, for the reverse is the case—l have seen patients who have been suffering for eleven or twelve years ; but it i 3 because it causes the afflicted person to be shunned by his fellow - creatures, to be banished from society, to bo an outcast among his fellow inen, and condemns those nearest and dearest to him to be considered as tainted with the same dreaded disease. When I was in Trinidad wo had a fearful epidemic qf smallpox, over twenty thousand cases occurring in a few months in a population of about 130,000. Not even the dread of smaHpox would induce the people to be vaccinated from members of families tainted with leprosy. The natives of the colony thought, and thought rightly, that it was better to die of small-pox than to incur the slightest risk of being inoculated with leprosy. I had many strange revelations made to mein those days, and found to my astonishment that there was hardly a family of any consequence in the island untainted by leprosy. And how it disfigures, how loathsome it becomes in its later stages, few even can realise in countries where it exists, unless they have lepers in their own families. For the lepers themselves shun their fellow-creatures, and cannot endure the sight of . their own countenances. In the female side of the Trinidad Leper Asylum, there was not the smallest scrap of looking-glass ! I examined one day a young lady (white) from Martinique; she was horribly deformed by the disease, which covered the face, neck, and forearms. Her mother then showed me the photograph of one of the most beautiful girls I ever saw—“ That was my daughter’s portrait two years ago,’ she exclaimed, with tears in her eyes. It was impossible to recognise a single feature. I was called in to attend in London, the son of an Indian officer of the highest rank, who . had been born in India. He was a leper, and his mother was a leper. She- was a native of India too, but a half-caste. It was such a very bad case that I strongly objected to treating it by Hr. Beauperthuy's method, and only tried it at the urgent request of the father. Some improvement was effected, but a cure was impossible, as the disease had extended to the mouth and throat.

Now, that leprosy is communicable, no one has at present any doubt. There never was any doubt, as far as I could discover, in the West Indies and South America, about the communicability, at least by inoculation, of leprosy; but certain interested persons, who feared that their relatives might be put in asylums, and themselves publicly branded as the relatives of lepers, pretended that the disease was non-con-tagious. But nobody acted on this theory. Lepers were invariably kept in seclusion, or if allowed to wander at large begging, the alms were placed where they could get them, but no one touched the lepers. Their fate was horrible—they were accorded some building to cover them, and provisions were given them which they cooked when anti how they could. No one attended to them or waited on them when helpless, except their fellow lepers, and they lived anddied, reckless, degraded and abandoned.

The Leper Asylum at Trinidad was a fair sample of such places all the world over. It was filthily dirty ; the stench was such that even a surgeon could hardly endure it; the patients when dying were ■untended, and the freest communication between the male and female departments was allowed. Sir Arthur Gordon visited the place, was naturally horrified at its condition, dismissed the physician and the resident superintendent, and appointed me to take charge, giving me carte blanche. The people in the capital said that I should never succeed in getting lepers to obey rules, or live decently; that they would murder me or try to do so, etc., etc. I replied that I did nob think that lepers could be worse than criminal lunatics, and as tiny could be kept in order, I had no doubt lepers could. In ten davs 1 had the whole place repaired, cooking in the wards abolished ; the meals cooked in the kitchen by a good cook and assistants, and served up hot ; the walls whitewashed ; the iron bedsteads all cleaned and painted, every article of betiding burnt, and new things given out, drains cleared, etc., and the whole place made new and clean. I dressed all the sores myself with disinfectants. There was no smell in the wards, and the patients, treated kindly but firmly, and like human beings, were as cheerful as their disease would allow them to be. Ultimately the Boininican Nuns came out and took charge of the nursing and interior management of the Asylum, and I was oromoted. We might then have probably stamped out leprosy, as there were not more than a hundred cases in the island ; . but, unfortunately, the Colonial Office was guided by the College of Physicians, of London, none of whom, probably, had ever , treated six cases of the disease, and most of whom had never seen a case : and, as they declared the disease to be non-contagious, the stringent ordinance which Governor • Cordon passed was suspended, and leprosy - has increased most alarmingly in the colony. While every reasonable care ought to be taken to prevent the spread of so terrible a plague, yet there are, as usual, the most . absurd ideas prevalent about the mode in which the disease may be conveyed from one human being to another. For instance, several persons have asked me whether I thought that; those who had eaten the vegetables the Chinaman had sold, would be ' liable to be attacked by leprosy ! Now, it is pretty certain that only inoculation can convey the disease ; this may occur through cuts, wounds, or scratches of • the skin, or by insects, which, like mosquitoes, have bitten a leper and then flown off and bitten a healthy person. The way in which leprosy always appears—that is, lirst in the parts exposed to the air, such as the face, hands, and feet, in people who go habitually barefoot, confirms this idea. Hr. Beauperthuy, whose experience in the disease was almost unique, in treating the cases always had them carefully protected by mosquito nets at night, so as to prevent ' one patient infecting another, or auto-in-fection by, the mosquitoes biting one part ' of the body and then the other. : •-’ A very short distance is sufficient to ' render , a residence for lepers quite free • froni danger to neighbours who do not associate with them. What is required in order to stamp out leprosy in New Zealand is first of all to pass an Act authorising the examination of all 'persons suspected of being lepers, and their detention in some properly isolated lios'pital. There should also be an inspection of all passengers from Honolulu and the -South Sea Islands, which should be declared infected ports. The Chinese should be inspected annually at least, so as to detect cases in the earliest stage, and all

Chinese should be inspected before being permitted to land. f; »• - ; ! If these measures were adopted and rigorously enforced there would soon be an end of lopiosy in this colony. If, on the other hand, we allow matters to drift in our usual Anglo-Saxon way until the disease makes its appearance among the white natives of the colony, we shall find that effectual measures will become exceedingly difficult. It is a well-known fact that a rich leper in the South, who is now dead, was allowed, during the whole course of the disease, to mix freely with the other inhabitants. His aspect was horrible and disgusting, but because he was one of the wealthiest men in the colony, he was allowed to go about and expose others to the danger of the disease. Probably we have not yet heard the last of this case, for the period of incubation is lontr. It is unusual, and almost useless, to appeal to any sentiment in New Zealand, except the most sordid love of money, but if any higher motive can animate the population of this colony, it surely would be that of taking stern but merciful measures now, we can protect the people from the most horrible disease which has ever afflicted mankind—a disease which, wherever it has become endemic, inspires such disgust and terror that the unfortunate victims are outcasts from society, and deprived of everything that can render life desirable.—l am, etc., E. H. Bakkwkll, M.D. Hobson-street, February 21st.