(13)
Deducting the seven persons who stated that their wife's father or mother only
had suffered from leprosy, the first five columns of the account provide a total of 304
persons who stated that their blood relations had suffered from the disease within their
knowledge, or nearly one in five (19.8 per cent.) of the lepers examined. Several of
these 304 persons acknowledged that their blood relations for two or three generations
back had suffered, and in such cases, only the fact as regards the nearest blood relation
of those affected was entered in the statement.
It will be noticed how large a proportion of those who acknowledged to hereditary
taint stated that either father or mother had been affected. This was to be expected
of persons of limited or blunted intellect, such as the majority of lepers are, for they
would be likely to know or remember little of any relation far removed or not living
within their own sphere of observation.
Nineteen persons stated that only their grand-parents had suffered, which points
to the fact that' leprosy may descend to the grand-children without visibly affecting
the intermediate generation. If this is so, it may not be unlikely that many of the
1,194 persons who stated their want of knowledge in regard to hereditary taint, or
absolutely denied its existence as part of the history of their own cases, may have had
leprous grandfathers or other relations of previous generations of whom they know
nothing. Some I think were likely to deny the fact of such taint, if they knew of it,
from shame or disinclination to record any words of memory disrespectful to their
departed forefathers.
34. This idea of, in reality, a larger average of cases of hereditary taint than the
histories disclose, is upheld by the statements of some of the Civil Surgeons who
recorded the facts on which this investigation rests.
The Civil Assistant Surgeon of Tarai district states, with regard, to 19 cases in
which lepers examined there answered "No" to the question of hereditary taint, that
he should be inclined to put down "unknown" as more nearly expressing their
meaning.
Doctor Wood, Civil Surgeon of Bijnor, is of opinion that many of the lepers exa-
mined by him, who denied any hereditary taint, were none the less subject to it.
Doctor Jones of Saháranpur is of opinion that leprosy is as much hereditary as
tuberculosis, and he has no doubt that the families of a much larger number of lepers
than those who acknowledged it in his histories (18 out of 60) have been afflicted with
leprosy, for there exists a great unwillingness on the part of lepers to confess that their
families have been affected.
Doctor Fitzgerald of Sháhjahánpur is of opinion that leper parents will almost
always beget leper children.
Doctor Thomas of Bánda records the opinion of the Tahsíldar of Sehondá, to the
effect that leprosy is invariably hereditary (confined to certain families) in that
pargana.
Doctor Hatchell of Jaunpur, where of 30 lepers, 28 denied all knowledge of here-
ditary taint, is of opinion that no reliance can be placed on the information given
under the head "family history."
35. In further proof of the probability that in these 1,531 histories the number
of cases connected with hereditary taint is under-stated, I should mention that of 60
cases reported by Doctor Hooper, from the Benares Leper Asylum, 33 of the persons
examined acknowledged hereditary taint in the following relationships—6, the grand-
father or grandmother; 9, the father or mother; 11, the uncle or aunt; 4, the brother
or sister; 3 the cousin.
4