Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1884-11-03
misfrIIantnns
Lepresy, Present and Past

/ an article OT Agnes LAMBERT III the Niu-
teentb Century: ..But leprosy." When
do describe it No one would follow me.
More cruel than the clumsy torturiDg
weapons of old. it distorts and scars, and
! hacks and mains, and destroys its victims
inch BY inch, feature by feature, member
by member. joint by joint, sense by sense,
4 leaving him 10 cumber the earth. and tell
the horrid tale of a living death until there
is nothing human left of him. Eyes. voice,
nose, toes. fingers. feet. hands. one after
the other are slowly deformed and rot
away, until at the end of ten. fifteen.
twenty years. it may be, the wretched
leper, afflicted in every sense himself, and
hateful to the sight. smell hearing. and
touch of others, dies, despised. and the
most abject of men,
/ Now, leprosy is disease that has ex-
| listed from the earliest historic times. 1t
once desolated Europe-Great Britain and
Ireland. In England it is no longer met
with. In Europe generally, except just
here and there, it is almost unknown. Is
it not then a wonderful thing. not that a
/ cure has not vet been discovered for lep-
rosy, but that with men OF science it is
still an open question whether leprosy is
communicable or incomnunicable. con-
| tagious or hereditary; whether it is due to
insufficient and bad food, or bad climate
and dirt, or all combined; to q lack of
meat or absence of vegetable diet; to the
use of salt fish or the want of salt ? Such.
| however, is the case.
| II should not, thir K. lay myself open
| to contradiction were to say that English
people, for the most part view the ques-
ton of leprosy, together with the laws
and regulations and treatment appertain-
| ing to it, as matter of purely antiquarian
interest. Not few, indeed, look upon it
as a sort of Jewish or Scriptural. II may
go say, disease that vanquished at the
dawn of Christianity that fell with
the fall of the old law and the
rise OF the new. And so closely
and absolutely is it associated with and
limited to the old world impressions of
their Bible lessons, that the illusions
made to it in such popular books of travel
as Miss Birds six Months in the Sand
witch Islands, and Lady Brassey's 'Voy-
age in the Sunbeam pass almost unno-
ticed
Adherence by everyone, the leper in
India is often ruthlessly driven by his
own flesh and blood from house and
home, generally to perish by the road
side; while in some places Government
interference alone, has put stop to his
being buried alive-the father burying
the son. the son burying his father
And not only the leper himself, but also
his relatives and friends. lest in multi
! plying their kind they should transmit the
disease to distant generations.
Though no law restraus him from
intercourse with other people. caste steps
in and takes the place of law. The man
of high caste, once leper. from that
moment is turned out of his caste; he
may not sit in the same room or house
with the sound and pure; his own kith
and kin will not eat what he has
touched. or drink or smoke with him.
II his wife eat with him she is put out
of caste. None will marry his daugh-
ters. even though there he not the
slightest sign of leprosy in them; and
they can never be readmtted into caste
There is no pity and no hope for him.
And when he dies. adherence follows
him to the grave; all religious ceremony
Is withheld from him, and his body,
given up to the low caste of sweepers and
such like. is subject 20 the greatest indig-
nifty the Hindoos can show their dead.
"Lepers are met with in every stage
of misery in India. They flock to the bor-
ders of the Ganges, to end their hopeless
lives 'on hoy ground Pilgrims, they
crowded t. Poree, to make prayers
and propitiatorv offerings to the idol
Lokenauth; and then. failing of their
cure, they continue to haunt the neigh
borhood, and from fresh centers of vice
as vile and detestible as the foul corrup-
ton that pollutes and makes havoc of
their bodies. Often herded by themselves
at night. they are scattered during the day
along the roadway and in the bazaars. beg
ging of the pitiful, and filling with hor-
ror the unaccustomed stranger. Special
hospital accommodation is provided for
them here and there but In all India.
with its millions of people and its over
100000 lepers, the asylums for the leper
can almost be counted on ones fingers
they are not fourth. nay not fourteenth
part of the larzar houses that England in
the middle ages built for the despised
children of St. Lazarus transfer the
following sketch from Mrs. Scott-Steven-
sons vivid picture of "Our Home in Cy-
prus" Mrs. Scott. Stevenson had the
courage to visit the leper farm OF Nicosia,
and this is what she saw.
my husband requested that the two
worst cases be pointed out to us. We
were brought to doorway. through which
we peeped, and we're shown a man who
lay moaning on a wooden tiestle. Two
women who were attending on him turned
him toward the light. could only make
a single glance and no more. Not fea-
ture of any kind was discernable. and
only by inflated movements, at regular in.
tervals. of the cheeks, could we tell liv-
ing being lay before us. We could only
, trust that he was unconscious; that his
condition was more appalling to the look.
eron than the actual suffering to himself. II
was believed he was quite an idiot; but
as he could neither speak, nor see, nor
smell, nor taste, nor even hear distinctly
it must have been hard to tell whether the
; brain was still conscious or not Food
J was administered by pouring liquids down
his throat. but every day this was becom
, ing more impossible. So we could only
hope that death would soon release him.
1.-THE spread of leprosy in China al
the present day is said to be enormous
In Canton alone. according to the report
of the College OF Physicians. there were
900 lepers in the Leper Asylum, besides
about 2, 800 at large, believed to be gain
ing a livelihood as beggars. rope-makers