Sacramento daily record-union., 1888-12-01
FACTS ABOUT LEPR0sY.
A Chicago Physician Gives an Interest
ing Outline of the Disease.

ing Outline of the Disease.
"Leprosy," said the doctor, " is roughly
divisible into two great types-tubercula
or black aud anesthetic or white In
the first spots of pale-red or dark-browri
color appear on the back, hands, feet,
palms, soles, forehead and cheeks. The
SAGE first becomes livid, then swollen and
discolored. The white leprosy is charac-
terized by water -blisters, at first, which
break and leave whitish scar The scar
is first the seat of stinging pain, afterward
succeeded by complete loss of feeling. The
disease lasts long time and the patient
dies in the white form from simple ex-
haustion; in the black death is usually
caused by blood-poisoning. The disease
is due to a bacllla or minute, fat, needle
like germ. This must find its way into
cut surface to become contagious. The
disease, hence, spreads slowly.
Leprosy has always existed in the
United States since the Louisiana pur-
chase. 1t did not spread much after the
war. The Creoles gave it to their negroes.
Several cases recently reported from Lou
isiana occurred among persons of Irish
birth or descent. The Chinese and the
Scandinavians, and, perhaps, the Sand
wich Islanders, are the chief sources of
leprosy in the United States. The Chinese
brought it to New York and California
and through the practice of opium smok-
ing introduced by them caused several
cases of infection among the whites who
had sore mouths. In the Sandwich Isl
ands the lepers are all isolated on one
island. A self-sacrifcing, heroic Jesuit,
hn 10 ,g ,clo,l Iac
fected in consequence of his heroic phil
anthropy. The Scandinavian cases re-
ported from Iowa and Minnesota have not
infected any person as yet. The leper COL
ony at Tracadie in the Dominion of Can
ada has not spread the disease which has
existed there for more than century.
There is no law in Illinois specifically
requiring the report of this disease, al
though the ordinary contagious disease
law has been construed into requiring its
report in Philadelphia and St. Louis.
The disease is easily kept in check by re-
quiring the isolation Of each case. The
importation of these cases should be pre-
vented, and the disease should be added to
those requiring special report. Most re-
putable physicians would report such
anyway, but the cure-all quacks won't
Chablmoogra oil and strychnine give good
results in treatment.
All Scandinavians coming from certain
districts in Norway and Sweden should be
carefully inspected on landing in America,
since, as Daniellsea and Boeck, the great
Norwegian authorities on leprosy, have
said, the disease can be made harmless
only by isolation The Chinese are, how
ever, much more liable to spread the dis
ease than the Scandinavians, who become
excellent American citizens in a very
short time, since their institutions and
modes of thought are very like those of
the United States. The ready assimila-
tion of the Scandinavian is not surprising,
the fact that there is an enor-
nous admixture of Scandinavian blood in
the Anglo-Saxons, who practically rule the
United States. The law-abiding Scandi-
navian viii readily submit to restraint, but
the opium-smoking Mongolian won't, and
from them will come the danger"-C Chicago
Nt,lrS