, 1876-09-30
LEPROSY IN INDIA,
Homeopathic Worldl

III &OACi0A &HNNN ANEIO1y ~
he that it is o disease of a slowly conta-
gious character and naturally of a very
protracted duration, lasting from eight or
nine to fifteen or twenty years, and is
chieay prevalent among the poorer classes,
and especially among such as subsist upon
scanty or unwholesome food. In many
of it's forms it reveals itself by some dis
igurement of the features, SO that it is
readily recognised by ordinary observers,
and its slow progress is attended by loath-
some sores and by loss Of the fingers and
toes, which gradually perish and drop off.
AS in Jud8a it is the custom of the
country-at least, among the poor, who
furnish the great majority Of the cases
to expel lepers from their homes and from
society as soon as the nature of their COM
plant Is discovered, and to look upon it as
q valid ground for the disruption of all do
nestle ties. The husband drives away
his wife, or the father his children, aud
take no further thought for their welfare or
subsistence. Thy become Outcasts, ex-
posed TO- al .irclemencies Of weather and to
al extremities of want, and supported, if
such word can be used, by food or money
which is exposed for them by the charitable,
and which they may only take after the
giver has departed, OF by such roots and ra-
tural produce as they can obtain for them
selves in the iungles. In Bombay there are
two establishments in which lepers are re-
ceived-one of them the Dhurmsala, named
after the late Sir Jamsetjee Jeeieebhoy;
the other The ward tor incurables which
is attached to the Sir Jamsetjee Jeeieeb-
hoy Hospital. The latter not only con-
tains thirty male lepers, but provides them
with proper hospital accommodation and
careful medical treatment while the
Dhurmsala contains 1870 lepers of both
sexes, who are better off than they would
be as wandering OutcaSts, but who are
crowded together, in defiance Of all
hygienic considerations. In order proper
II to estimate the relation between the evil
and the provision thus made for its reliet 1T
must be remembered that the known
lepers in the Bombay Presidency exceeded
1000 in number in 1871, and the
number in the whole Indian peninsula is
supposed to be not less than 100000.
Their condition may be fairly estimated
from a narrative extracted from a letter
in the Times of India. The writer says of
q lsper-man whom he had lately seen =
" He was the servant Of a Brahmin land
owner in the Concan, and while present at
a marriage festival, was noticed to have some
(eprous) thickening of the ears and face
Thereupon the people insisted on his leav-
ing the village, bis wife aud child left
him, and he took refuge in a reed hut
once belonging to some wandering tribe
of KatOdies. At morn and even he VEN
tured near the outlying dwellings to beg
for a little food. He ate such fruit as was
%procurable, and possessing as his all the
sum of eight annas, he expended that IN
buying from the young cowherds trag
ments of their meals. Finally he left the
locality and reached Bombay. Contrary
to what is usual, this man was in fair
bodily condition, and able to work, but
no one in Bombay would employ him."
When such misery as this is multiplied
by 100, 1000 in the actual present, and pro-
vides for its own indefinite multiplication
in the future. it surely assumes dimensiors