The Newtown bee., 1879-02-18
FACTS ABOUT LEPROSY.
4 Disease That May Yet Become Conn
 in Amarfea

FACTS ABOUT LEPROSY.
 4 Disease That May Yet Become Common
 In America.
 Dr. Wasson writes to the Louisville Couyier-Joureal as follows: As the article in last Sundays paper, headed IA Leper in Chicago" was generally read, no doubt with great interest, the writer of this respectfully asks space in your columns for a few short chapters on the subject of this most loathsome and terrible disease, calling attention to its past and present existence, the prob abilities of it's origin in early ages, how it's victims are affected and the erroneous ideas concerning the disease as expressed in the article alluded to. There is, per- haps, no subject which has attracted more attention among medical men of late years than the disease of leprosy. And now that it has been brought to our very doors, in our own country, and may become common enough in time, till the sight will become quite familiar, possi- bly, in all our cities, it is only reason able to anticipate growing interest with the appearance of the disease.
 This awful scourge, which affiicts the human body. although comparatively unknown in the largest part of Europe even to the present day, is very common in many countries, and it's origin and history date back to early antiquity.
 The fact that this dreadful disease has, until recently, been removed so far from the field of modern investigation by medical scientists, both in Europe and America, has continued to make it only the more obscure and wonderfully strange phenomen. -
 The most prominent features of lep- rosy which form it's peculiar character istics are these; Anesthesia of the ex- tremities, often involving the face, and rarely or seldom the trunk or body; the skin is generally thickened and changed in it's color into red, dusky, glossy hue; the hair of the face falls of, sometimes completely; tubercules appear on the face and extremities, which break from time to time, or large bulboe are formed on the extremities, which are often formed into deep, cor roding, fetid ulcers; the joints of the fingers and toes are almost invariably involved during the course of the dis ease, often sioughing away joint after joint, till the hands and feet become crippled; the voice becomes husky, or is wholly lost, and the respiration be- comes difficult. While these changes are going on the general health is more or less impaired, and after few years the victim sinks from exhaustion or intercurrent disease. The Greeks call ed the disease eleaohaatiasis, but the Arabs make careful distinction be- tween what was anciently known to the Greeks as eleohuntiasis and true lep- rosy, or what they call e .jatc1hGns, but ordinarily called cd da' e kebir, the great disease. One of the earliest symptoms of which the victim takes particular notice is loss of sensation or motion in one or all of the extrem- ities, sometimes on the face, and less frequently on the body. On it's first appearance the circulation becomes feeble. the color dusky, and general sensation or feeling diminished. The patient describes 1t as one of numbness; sometimes he calls it stinging, prick ing pain.
 The skin of the affected parts is at first puffy, and ultimately permanently thickened and somewhat scaly; some- times with hard, corded, knotty lines running up the forearms. As the dis ease advances, the fingers and toes lose their natural feeling or sensibility. so that in walking he may cast off loose slipper without being aware of it. At this time or soon after, the face becomes similarly affected, with change of com plexion plainly marked, and disfigured appearance of the features, which is so peculiar to this disease. The color be- comes red, dusky and shining, the skin thickened and knotted: the hair of the head, the eyebrows and lashes often en- tirely disappear, with red and watery eyes. When the body becomes attacked, the skin is affected in patches.
 The earliest symptoms of the disease are ushered in Gas stated by Ell Kamory, an ancient Arabian author) by a " con- gested appearance of the eyes, duski- ness of the skin, huskiness of the voice, fetid precipitation, pnfiness of the face with alteration and increased redness, and gradual loss of the hair of the eye brows.
 In his great concern as to the fearful consequences of his malady, the patient rarely speaks of it. All active cheer fitness is lost, and the leper assumes a sad, subdued, melancholy mien through life. He knows he is the vic i'm of an incurable and loathsome dis ease, summed by his nearest relations, disabled from work, and reduced to de- pendence, if not to the most abject pov- erty, as is frequently the case. His life thus becomes burden, heavy indeed tc be borne, md this feeling sometimes becomes so intolerable as to cause the poor, miserable sufferer to put an un' timely end to his life.
 Chances of Long Life.
 Seven persons died in New Hampshire during the year 1878 who had reached
 the age of 100 years or more, one O
 them, Betsy Carr, of Unity, having I iyed 11() years. seven months and six