Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1885-01-07
Lcnrosy, Present and Past.

NttjDuo vi ulSlOItS
and scars, and hacks and mains, and
destroys its victims inch by inch, fea-
turc by feature, member by member,
joint by joint, sense by sense, leaving
him TO cumber the earth, and tell the
horrid tale of 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 ut 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 dc.
spised, and the most abiect of men,
"Now leprosy is disease that has
existed from the earliest historic times.
1t once desolated Europe--Great Brit
ain and Ireland. In England it is no
longer met with. In Europe generally,
except just here and there, il is almost
unknown. Is it not then wonderful
thing, not that cure has not yet been
discovered for leprosy, but that with
men of science it is still an open ques-
ton whether leprosy Is communicable
rincommunicable, contagious or hered
itary; whether il is due to insufficient
and bad food, or bad climate and dirt
or all combined TO q lack of meat OF
absence of vegetable diet; to the use OF
salt fish or the want of saltp Such, how.
ever, is the case.
81 should not, | think, lay myself
open to contradiction wereI to say that
English people, for the most part view
the question of leprosy, together with
the laws and regulations and treatment
appertaining to it, as matter of purely
antiquarian interest. Not few, indeed,
look upon il as sort of Jewish OF
Scriptural, if L may so say, disease thai
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 il 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
Sandwich Islands and Lady Brassey's
Voyage in the Sunbeam, pass almost
unnoticed.
"Abhorred by everyone, the lcper 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
oiohO h6o pun ~ otoP w Hio
being buried alive-the father burying
And not only the leper himself, but also
plying their kind they should transmit
the disease to distant generations.
Though no law restraints him from
intercourse with other people, caste
steps in and takes the place of law. The
man of high caste, once lcper, from
that moment is turned out of his caste
he may not sit in the same room OF
house with the sound and pure; his owr
kith and kin will not eat what he ha:
touched or drink or smoke with him
If his wife eat with him she is put out
of caste. None will marry his daugh.
tiers, even though there be not the
slightest sign of leprosy in them, and
they can never be readmitted 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 to the greatest in
dignity the Hindoos can show their dead
''Lepers are met with in every stage
of misery in India. They flock to the or
ders of the Gauges to end their hopeless
lives on holy ground Pilgrims, they
crowed to Pooree to make prayers
and propitiatory offerings to the lido
Lokenauth; and then, failing of their
cure, they continue to haunt the neigh.
borhood, and from fresh centers of vice
as vile and detestable rs the foul cor
ruption that pollutes and makes havoc
| of their bodies. Often herded by them.
selves ut night, they are scattered dur.
inc the day along the roadway and in
the bazaars, begging of the pitiful,
and filling with horror the unaccus-
toned stranger. Special hospital
accommodation is provided fol-
them here and there; but in all India,
with its millions of people and its over
| hundred thousand lepers, the asylums
| for the leper can almost be counted on
ones fingers; they are not fourth,
nay, not fourteenth, part of the lazai
houses that England in the middle age:
built for the despised children of st.
| Lazarus | transfer the following
sketch from Mrs. Scott-Stevenson 6
vivid picture of sour Home in Cy
prus." Mrs. Scott-Stevcnson had the
courage to visit the leper farm of Nico.
STA, 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 were
shown u man who lay moaning on o
wooden tresilc. Two women who were
attending on him turned him toward
the light. could only make n single
| glance, and no more. Not feature oi
any kind was discernable, and only by
inflated movements, at regular inter
| walls, of the cheeks, could we tell lv.
ing being lay before us. We could only
| trust he was unconscious; that his con-
dition was more appalling to the on.
| locker than the actual suffering to him.
self. 1t was believed he was quite an
IDIOT but rs he could neither speak,
| nor see, nor smell, nor taste, nor even
| hear distinctly il must have been hard
| to tell whether the brain was still con.
| scious or not Food was administered
by pouring liquids down = his throat,
but every day this was mercifully be-
coming more impossible. So we could
only hope that death would soon re
| lease him.
"'The spread of leprosy in China al
| the present day is said to be enormous
| i'm Canton alone, according to the re.
port of the College of Physicians, there
were 900 lepers in the Leper Asylum,
besides about $500 at large, believed
to be gaining a livelihood as beggars,
rope-makers, and peddlcrs. There are
also numbers ut Macao and Sha nghai
both, it will be remembered, being
ports opened to commerce by treaty.
The Chinese are so mercilcss to lepers,
through fear of infection, that the
suicide of lcpers by opium, hanging,
and drowning, to avoid the dreaded
consequence of their isolation, is
frequent. They believe tho disease
runs through four generations, after
| which it becomes exhausted, Hence
they "never permit any marriages with
the progeny of leprous parents.