Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-06-19
SPREAD OF LEPROSY.
4 Need of More Stringent Laws
Providing for Its Prevention.
DANGER OF TRAVEL In CUBA.
The Disease Circulated by Means Of Paper
Money and Otherwise.
TREATMENT OF LEPERs IN SCOTLAND

| fennSylVdnla Lnat tnelr Otdte DO6fu VI
Health recently sent to the medical profes-
sion circulars making inquiries for the pur-
pose of legislation.
Attention was recently called to the
actual danger of the disease getting . foot.
hold in Pittsburg by DR.. W. II. DAILY. In .
paper read before the Allegheny Medical
Society, not so very long ago, he said it
was needless to point out that from Pitts
burg alone there are at least 80 persons who
visit Havana, Cuba, during every winter,
and from Pennsylvania there are probably
200
An eminent dermatologist and valued
friend, DR.. L. Duncan Bulkley. of New
York. had recently expressed doubts before
the New York Academy of Medicine, as to
the contagiousness of leprosy, and DR..
DAILY read the published paper with some
apprehension as to the effect of the eI-
pressions of so distinguished an authority
upon the profession, and there were some
statements made by the doctor that ought
to receive further discussion. DR.. DAILY
then went on to prove the infectious char
acter of the disease. For all practical and
hygienic purposes, he added, it is quite
needless to differentiate between contagionl
and infection. Sufficient for either question,
If admitted, is segregation, and other
quarantine measures to stamp out the dis
ease.
Pittsburg Travellers In Danger.
| The laws concerning isolation of lepen in
Havana are disgustingly and perilously Lax,
the doctor said. Many years ago there was
. wealthy leper who died in Havana and
| who endowed hospital for these unfortu-
mates. As q part of that hospital there il q
| spacious shrine, or church, where inmate
lepers and outside citizens meet Sunday after
| Sunday to worship. True, the lepers arc
| not allowed outside the iron gratings of the
| porch, but they sit inside in crowds and
| traffic in the closest possible proximity and
| talk at will with their friends and loungers
on the spacious steps, through the iron
bars
Little children in crowds play about them
on the steps and witness the public swim
ming of the horses in the surf in front Of
the leper hospital During several of the
doctors visits ball games were in progress
before the hospital, and crowds as lockers
on swarmed upon the hospital steps. The
| public is admitted to worship in the lspen
| church without restraint.
"At my visits" said the doctor, isthe
lepers gathered around me closely, and
| many offered freely to exchange their man
and filthy paper money for silver, all will
| ing to submit to any professional examine
! tion in their earnest desire to get relief Il
] is needless to say that the infected paper
I money finds its way into the pockets of the
general public, and becomes a fertile
source of contagion and infection"
Turned White by tbs Disease.
DIR. DAILY had been interested in the cass
of Joseph Miller, one of the survivors Of
the massacre of the crew of the flfbustering
ship, Virginius, in 1872, who was q leper
inmate of the hospital AT the time of his
rescue, he was a hale and hearty dark
mulatto, but IS years of leprosy had turned
him white; it has also made him handless,
footIess, sightless, noseless; it has left him
without ears; it has left him without what
would be recognized as a human voice; it
has left him a hideous, CHASTITY creature,
without hope in lie; mere thing, whom
to look at is to make the stoutest heart
shudder; whom to touch is to take the
greatest possible risk of a contagion that is
sure to destroy.
Whstever be the pathology of leprosy,
there can be no doubt that il is q disease af.
fecting nutrition, and which does its deadly
work by absorption OF Lucrative absorp-
tion OF the tissues For example, in the
early cases there will be seen on close in
spection slight tumefaction of the skin
and cellular tissue at point on the ear, or
nose, or limb. Later on there will be q
gradually encroaching construction at or
near the point, and slow absorption or am
putation of the member or part. In some
other early cases there is o strange altera-
tion in the countenance and plaques Of skin
on the face and body, altered and bleached,
or rendered hvid by detective nutrition OF
local Inflammation.
L@prosy Once Ragged In Scotland.
Latitude seems to make no differences.
From the tenth to sixteenth centuries Scot
land suffered. 1t fingered in the northern
islands of Scotland long after it had disap-
peared from all other parts of Britain.
An order of knighthood-the Knights Of
Saint Lazarus-was instituted about tho
time of David l., for the care of lepers
Knights of this order are said to have been
common in Scotland and France. Whist
kind or extent of power these knights were
allowed to exercise over the lepers and Ieper
houses, is not known. Every person seized
with leprosy within the walls of town was
removed at once to the hospital If he had
nothing of his own a collection of 20 shill-
ings was made for his behoof He who shell.
tered or concealed leper even for a single
pight was heavily fined. Some of the,
attached to them, and must have supported
their inmates in all the comforts of which
the unfortunates were capable.
ALeper Was Considered Dead.
In Scotland leper was held to be man
dead in law. He was incapable of Inherit
ing and lost all his civil privileges On
the day that he was put into the hospital
the burial service was performed over him.
A priest in surplice and stole went to the
lepers and began the dismissal ceremony by
exhorting him to suffer with patience the
plague with which God had stricken him.
He was then sprinkled with holy water and
conducted to the church, funeral verses
being chanted. Arrived IN the church, the
ordinary dress of the leper was taken off
He was then wrapped in a funeral pail
and placed corpse-wise before the altar on
two trestles, while the mass for the dead
was sung over him. After this he was
again sprinkled with holy water and led to
the hospital.
A clapper and 'cop," or bell and dish, .
stick, a cowl and leper's dress were given
him. Before leaving him the priest
solemnly interdicted him from appearing
in public without his leper's garb-from en-
tering inns, mills, churches and bake
touching children or giving
them anything which he has touched-from
washing his hands or anything that per-
tanned to him in the common fountains or
streams-from touching in the market tho
goods which he wished to buy with any,
thing but his stick-from eating or drinking
with any others except lepers-from walk
ing in narrow paths-from answering those
who spoke to him in the roads or streets,
- II, hat thaxv .fophS 1&k n