The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-09-15

It is hardly fit that man whose trade
has led him through the fields of imagin-
alive and picturesque literature rather
than solid fact in letters should intrude
himself largely into this very serious re-
cital. This is the reason for taxing refuge
largely in the more reliable statements of
more conservative men and gathering lib
orally from those who are learned in the
nature Of this ancient and terrible malady.
And yet this leprosy of to-day, in what
ever part of the world, is hardly the old
1eprosy of the Bible.
1t would seem that medical science has
met it face to face, as it met the terrible
scourges of cholera nearly half a century
since, and SO modified the rigors of the
affection that it is not so much to be
dreaded now.
In former paper it was shown that.
numerous as are the lepers in the islands
proportional to the population, they are
but a small part of those on. the globe, the
lepers of India outnumbering them hun
dreds to one.
The following statistics were handed me
by Dr.. Milan SouIe. man who ranks
bnigh in the profession in London and hes
made himself familiar with leprosy in al
most every 4and.
The latest statistics show that there are
F1,287 lepers in Bengal, ID ,944 in Madras
and Is, $40 in Bombay. The lepers in the
native States are not included in these
totals.
1t was also explained that there were
comparatively no lepers on the islands
until after the natives, during an cpl
demic of smallpox, were vaccinated with
matter taken from the arms of a China
man presumably afflicted with leprosy i'm
ported from the Orient.
It was further stated in that former
paper on the best authority that not only
has the further spread of the piteous
rnalady been arrested but that cures have
been effected recently both in the islands
and India.
There is a Japanese doctor in Honolulu
who is credited by the people with great
work in this line, and the lepers espe-
cially have boundless confidence in his
power to cure them. OF course, as usual in
all lands, doctors disagree" and you may
hear this learned Japanese doctor sadly
abused by learned doctors of other nations.
l found, on inspection of the books kept
by the Board Of Health of Honolulu, that
only about fifty white lepers have ever
been known on the islands, all or nearly
. all of whom were from the most humble
walks in life-seamen mostly, and presum-
ably more or less unclean in body and in
mind.
And right here we must face one of the
many contradictions met with in the study
of this sad malady. The natives literally
live in the water-clean, healthful, warm
~ rafnr-apd NJ ca
must be the cleanest in BODY of all primi-
tive people to be found. Yet these clean,
ambitious natives are the lepers, as a
rule. One other notable contradiction !:
While leprosy is held to be contagious, and
even infectious in some cases, there are
women in the leper settlement who have
had one, two, and in one case even three
leper husbands who have died of their
afliction. and vet these women are unaf-
Affected.
1t is claimed by the authorities, and
have no means of disputing it even if there
was reason to doubt it, that many children
born at the leper settlement of leprous
parents have shown no signs OF the dis
ease, and that few children have actually
been brought away from there and placed
at one of the excellent schools in Homo
lulu. Indeed, this paper might be filled
with all sorts of like improbable contra
dictions in the tortuous course of this
snake-like disease.
1t is argued that it is an insect, sort of
black scale or white scale, that fastens on
the body, as the scale fastens on the olive
trees of California. The orchard scale,
Won observe, does not take hold of the
healthy and cultivated tree that has water
and soil at the roots. So it would seem, in
a general way, the enthusiastically small
scales that breed their millions and billions
to the square inch fasten only on the
meager. feeble and meanly fed human
BODY. And even then, like tree, it dies
but slowly, about five years being the
average allotment, although some live as
long as anybody.
The ewes of the scientific as well as the
snirituaI world are fixed on the stricken
natives of Hawaii, and learned men of
medicine from far away are going, true and
fearless. as Father Damien OF the church
went Invertebrates of everything, careless
of everything except to do good. We can
get much light on the real situation and
comfort as to the condition of the lepers at
Molokai by reading the following from one
81 those good men of our service, 6. w.
Wood, Medical Inspector, United States
navy:
Being expected at Molokai, large
whaleboat manned by eight lepers put OF