Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-06-23

thorities say, will bring the average up
 to from 4e to 60 per cent. of the inhab-
 itants. Such also may be the fate of
 British Guiana, Australia, New zea-
 land, Japan, Madagascar, Siam and
 Borneo, in all of which countries lep-
 rosy is said to be making great head
 way.
 This development of the disease in
 Hawaii can be traced from it's genesis
 in 1850. To-day 1,90O of the worst cases
 have been herded together in the leper
 settlement of MoloIsai, which has
 proved conclusively the contngiousness
 of the disease. The most notable case
 on record in this connection is that of
 the humanitarian, Father Damien de
 Veustcr, who, in 1873, left his cure in
 Hawaii to give up his life for the anfor-
 tunates kept apart from the rest of the
 world at Molokai. When he first took upon himself this act of sclf-sacrifce, and to which he died martyr, he WEES robust, healthy man. Three years later he developed ineipient tubercular' leprosy, the most horrible and yiruIent phase of the disease. Within ten years he was a corpse.
 It is not improbable that before many years have gone by the entire native population ot the Sandwich islands will have succumbed to this malignant destroyer, whose ravages there exhibit an object lesson of which the people of the United States should take heed. It is more likely than not, however, it will work itself out on this continent in a far different manner from what it did in Europe, where, al- though first observed in Italy in the second century, it did not become gen. eraI until the eighth century, and al- most epidemic in the twelfth, declining in the fifteenth and beconSing practical ly extinct in the seventeenth, to once more assert itself again in the middle of the present century. Since that time it has attacked races long free from it.. working it's course naore partic- ularly in: strong, healthy and Pirile PeO- pie, like the Scandfnavians.
 The fallaey degmatically prontIl~ gated in 1867 by tFAe Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Great Brit ain and Ireland that leprosy was nos, contagious has been shown to bs absos lutely false by Dr.. Hansen's discovery of the lepric Eacilli i'm 1874 This is, 8. slender rodlike parasites half to hree4 quarters of the diameter of a human blood corpuscles and one-fifth oE its, length. The BiTish. dogma of the. .Hen4- contagiousness o6 leprosg is no longer needed by Americans and other. der+- matologists. BuS many of the phEsii- clans and authorities, in the British possessions still Kssld. tsp the position taken twenty-eigfitt years ago by, the highest British medical authority, aud the consequence fiss that sur best asi-- thorities have t<p regarxh Immigrants and products froum all the. colonial pcs sessions of great Dshttainl with the most. terrible dread.
 In addition to- tine case of Father Damien as an evidence, of the ina fectious character o@ leprosyr there ares also instanced thae cases of numerous, sisters of charity and physicians whcS have devoted theiu-iives to- tfEe careeoAg lepers, thereby sacrificing themselves for the love of humanity. religion orr science. The besEEnown .hNneTican ex-- ample of this is thatsof Father Boglioli, who died of leprosy contracted by him at the Charity hospital inl New or-- leans while administering the sacrn-- ment of extreme umction t6 two lepea-s..
 Medical science. seems tns be united now in the belief that. lepresy is not transnissible, and Dr. Pitt kin, as an evidence off this, ,.caIled my, to tha fact that Ss was so recognized in tie notable instance of the foundation of the Kapidaani home at Honolulu foax the nonlepTous chil-- dren of lepers. It has ;alsos been dis covered that woEnen are less liable to- the disease than mem: thus for in-- stance, there are g9,000 male lepers irs. the East Indies to B, 0O8i females. AL though incurable in individual cases brought on by want of cleanliness, ex- posture tocold or dampe and. the use of. semi-putrid fish and meat. and rancid. oil, vet hygienfe and proper sanitauy- conditions appear to have, 3estroyedi it. in certain communities
 But it is errztic in. it's methods. as shown in the, fact that. thu incubation, of the disease may gason unrecognlzad from three to twenty, years or mpre. Cases are ested of persons having re- sided in the Sandwich. islands, British Guiana, theeU United States of Colombia. New Caledonia andi elsewhere who,. although tstey unknowingly contracted. the disease there. it did not manifest. itselfFfor long years-afteEyvard.
 Tubere1aaar leprosy,. Dr. Pitkihl ex- plained to me, hegins in a daferent manner.fhon that mil1er type of tue. disease an@sthetic on painless leprosy. It commences by exhibiting small spots where the lepric,. parasitic basilli have made iRsions or entrance into the flesh. Then tubercless develop, unite. with others. and give to the features cor rugated or fuerowred appearance, or sometimes that. of Redular prominences egg-shaped in character. The. cheeks become tumihed, the lips swollen, the nose thiclkened. broadened and crushed M appearances and the ears protuber-
 ant with thin lobes flahhily hanging