Leprosy in India.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 455, 19 March 1890, Page 5

Leprosy in India.

Recently some particulars were published in ‘ The Globe ’ of the social treatment of lepers, gleaned from some notes (printed for private circulation) on an address recently delivered to the Bath Literary and Philosophical Association by Mr Austen J. King. In continuation of those extracts, it may be said that the theory underlying the report of the College of Physicians is, that just as the disease has declined in Europe, in consequence of the _ ini--1 provement in diet and general hygiene, so its decrease in India and the colonies might be confidently expected. But the census in India told a diiieront tale. That of 1872 showed no less than 99,073 lepers in British India, and it was well known that these figures fell far short of the reality. In the census of 1881, the numbers were pub at 131,618. In a report by Dr. Carter, he says :—‘l am disposed to infer that, should the colonisation of India by Englishmen bo ever attempted on a large scale, there would be a decided risk of the new population becoming tainted with leprosy, nay, this risk might be converted into a positive infliction, were nob means taken to prevent a possible communication of the disease, and, therefore, strict regulations would have to be enforced.’ The condition of India is one wtoich must receive immediate attention. The number of lepers at the present time is said to be no less than 250,000. They are employed in such duties as the baking of bread—as cooks in restaurants —as ticket distributors on railways. They beg in the crowded bazaars, and we hear of a colony taking up their abode on the flagstones surrounding the large Nacoda Tank, between the two principal educational establishments of Bombay. Here they have been seen washing themselves in the Tank, and even dressing their wounds with stones picked up and thrown away again.

The Modern Theory on Communicability.

In a few notes on this subject it is said that the distinguished surgeon, Mr Jonathan Hutchinson, made some very careful investigations of ‘imported cases,’ which came under his cognisance. He has found that in this country the closest intimacy of bed and board has been unproductive of taint, and that the disease of lepei’s coming to England has been arrested. And he gives it as bis matured opinion that, while the communication of the disease by contagion is possible as the result of a carefully performed scientific experiment, it is impossible in actual practice. He then goe3 on to say that the disease must depend ‘ upon some very special kind of poison of rare occurrence taken in connection with food.’ Without affirming in totidem verbis that the poison is to be found in fish, he plainly intimates that he leans to this view. Now this ‘ fish theory ’is by no means a new one. Sometimes putrid fish has been treated as the fons el origo—sometimes fish too fresh, and at other times, the combination of fish and milk taken at the same meal. If we glance at a map coloured to show the distribution of leprosy, we shall see that, although there are large inland districts infected, the disease especially haunts the sea coast, where fish would be a common article of diet. But whether we assume that the disease lurks in fish, or in some unknown article of food, the theory leaves several admitted facts quite unexplained. Our knowledge of the disease is insufficient to enable us to distinguish accurately between districts which are infected, and those which are free. We cannot say in what the immunity consists, or upon what it depends. In all countries upon the habitable earth leprosy exists, bub there appear to be certain districts in which it seldom or never seizes a fresh victim. In the British Islands, for example, the disease does not spread ; individual cases of leprosy appear, bub always under circumstances seeming to warrant the belief that the contagium has been received into the system during a residence in some district abroad where the disease prevailed. The same immunity exists in a more modified form in France (excluding the provinces of Savoy and Nice), Germany, Austria, Belgium, and Holland. The highest proportion of lepers to the population in any European country is to be found in Norway, although, locally, the disease is confined within very narrow limits. Portugal takes the next place on the fatal roll, and then follow Turkey, Crete, Spain, Italy, and Sicily, and parts of Russia. At Lisbon, Alicante, Seville, San Remo, in Madeira, and Grand Canary, as well as in Norway, there are leper asylums. These exist as indices of the amount of the disease, but, as no attempt is made to prevent the inmates from mixing with the general population, they are useless as a means of protection. Indeed, in many places lepers may be seen making a hideous market of their infirmity. In Turkey, Egypt, and Palestine, lepers are banished from the society of men, but the accommodation provided for them is so miserably inadequate, and the officials administering the sanitary laws so careless and so venal, that little”good is accomplished, as compared with the suffering inflicted. Asia and Africa are both terrible sufferers from the scourge, and it has been insidiously working its way into the New World and Australasia.

Father Damien.

The article concludes: —‘For 20 long years—God only knows how long and how terrible they were—Father Damien did his work at Molokai—a poor and lowly work of sordid detail, rescued only from monotony by its horror. On the 15th April in this year he went to his reward—a reward which we may well believe to be exceeding great. He was but 49, and he seemed to himself to have done so little. He had made a few lepers, the offscourings and refuse of society, a little less miserable; he had shown to them a happy home beyond their place of banishment. He had but his life to give, and he gave it generously and gladly. And here the tale might have ended. But no ! The example of the poor priest has kindled a flame in generous hearts over the whole globe. Priest and physician, peasant and aristocrat, ladies of fashion and humbie nuns, men and women of every race and every creed, thirst to participate in a good work so nobly commenced ; and the death of this great man, this martyr of charity, will bring comfort and assistance to more lepers than even his generous zeal thought of. But this is not all. We may well hope that the crusade which his death has inaugurated will be so boldly waged and prosecuted with energy and skill alike so unflinching, that this fell disease which has ravaged Europe, and now dominates fair lands on our right hand and our left, may be finally driven from the earth it has too long been allowed to pollute,’