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other parts of the country, attracted to Sitapur in the hopes of living by alms
and charity.
There is nothing peculiar about the inhabitants of Sitapur and ThompsonganJ
as compared with those of the other towns above given. The drainage of Thomp-
songanj is very good, that of Sitapur is not good, but it is not worse than that
of many of the others.
2. The disease is in my opinion heriditary. It appears in different members
of the same family and continues to appear in them and their decendants for
generations. This cannot be accounted for by the fact that the habits of life and
circumstances of the family are the same, as in many cases they are not so. In
cases where the members of the family are separated when young, the girls marrying
and removing to different parts of the country, and their circumstances and habits
being different, the disease appears in them or in their offspring; such cases, and
there are many such undoubted cases, prove the disease heriditary.
8. I do not believe that the disease is contagious in the ordinary sense of
that term, or is "spread by contagion like syphilis". I have known of a case which
would seem to favour the opinion that it is communicable thus. A girl in whose
family there was no trace of the disease, marries a leper, and after some years the
disease appears in herself, but this is scarcely what is meant by contagion ; at least
we can understand the possibility of disease being thus propagated, and yet not
being in the ordinary sense contagious.
No. 620, dated Lucknow,the 19th April 1875.
From—The Superintendent, Central and District Jails, Lucknow.
To—The Sanitary Commissioner of Oudh.
WITH reference to your No. 907, dated 15th instant, I have the honour to
submit the following on the subject of leprosy.
I. Prevalence of the disease in the Lucknow Central and District Jails.
Institution.
Lucknow Central Prison
Ditto District Jail
Number of in-
mates on 18th
April 1875.
1,743
820
Number of lepers
among them.
9
3
II. Mode of propagation of the disease.—I am of opinion that leprosy, like
other constitutional diseases, as phthisis and gout, is inherited, and that no circum-
stances of life generate it de novo. I do not think that it is communicable like
syphilis and other contagi is diseases. I am unable as yet to state the evidence on
which the above opinions are based. Of 21 cases of leprosy, whose histories
I have collected since 1871, two patients only acknowledged that the disease had
existed in their families. In one case the father, and in the other a paternal uncle,
had died of leprosy.
No. 2281, dated Lucknow, the 17th November 1875.
From—G. D. McREDDIE, Esq., Superintendent, Central Prison, Lucknow.
To—The Sanitary Commissioner of Oudh.
Junior Secretary to Chief Commissioner's
No. 4931, dated 20th October 1875.
Sanitary Commissioner's No. 2808, dated 6th
November 1875.
Superintendent, Central and District Jails,
No. 620, dated 19th April 1875.
WITH reference to the correspondence marginally noted, I have the honour to
state that no further remarks can be
made on the prevalence, cause and mode
of propagation of leprosy, but I beg
to forward a statement of six patients
in the Central Prison under treatment
with gurjun oil.
Central Prison.—The treatment began with six patients (one of whom was
released on the 2nd February 1875, on expiry of sentence). Subsequently up to