The Wadsworth dispatch. [volume] (Wadsworth, Nev.) 1892-1899, 1897-07-21
WEDNESDAY,. JULY q, 1897
GROWTH OF LEPROSY.

"hnSh " oHiuiOh Ah8u IL
Generally Thought.
Leprosy is not SO rare as we have
been taught to think, and through
out the civilized world the disease
is vigorously alive, claiming vic
Tins every day of the year and in
creasing its hold in certain coun-
tries with alarming rapidly. Nor
way is said to be the most leprous
country in Europe, and it is esti-
mated that over 500 are suffering
from it there, while in Sweden the
progress of the disease has been 30
rapid in recent years that there are
462 victims of it. In Spain and Por-
tugal there are numerous leper hos
pitfalls which are never without pa
tients, and in Turkey and the Ionian
islands it gains ground annually.
There are over 800 lepers in Crete,
and the latest statistics show that
there r 100, 900 lepers in India,
China, Japan, Haiti, Trinidad, Gui.
ana, Venezuela, Brazil, Paraguay.
Tonquin and Indo-C China are all in
tested with leprosy.
But when we come nearer home
we find that the disease has made
alarming progress in certain coun-
tries.
The oldest leper colony in this
part is located ut Tracadie, in the
province of New Brunswick, Can
ada. Here probably occurred the
first death in North America from
leprosy. 1t was nearly Sb years ago
that a woman died in Tracadie of
a peculiar disease, and was buried
by a missionary priest of the Ro-
man Catholic church. The physician
who attended the case went to Eu-
rope shortly afterward to find a par
allel case, but he was unable for a
time to find any n suffering from
the same malady. While visiting
in Norway ne saw several lepers,
and upon his return to Canada
he unhesitatingly pronounced the
strange case Of the dead woman to
have been leprosy.
But the strangest part of the story
Of how leprosy started in that coun-
try was revealed later. One of the
four fishermen who carried the
body of the dead woman to her
grave was in his shirt sleeves at the
time, and the sharp edge of the cof-
fin cut through the sleeve into the
skin: The coffin had been rudely
made and the corpse put in care
lessly. A Shiny discharge from the
body oozed through the wooden boz
and entered the p%unctured flesh of
the fisherman. This caused blood
poisoning, and the man died a short
time afterward from the same NAL
ady. 1t was about this time that the
physician returned and announced
to the boaro of health that the wom-
ans disease was leprosy. Inside OF
16 years there were 20 lepers in Ira
cadie, and the provincial govern
ment had to take steps to isolate
them from the rest of the popuia-
ton. The l~azaretto was a'miserable
building, where the lepers were
forced to live and die in great mis-,
cry, often suffering more from hun
ger and cold than from the pangs
of the disease. The inmates of this
building constantly increased, and
little was done to improve their con-
dition until 1865. In that year the
good sisters of the Hotel Dieu in
Montreal, through certain represen-
tations of DR.. Bayard of Tracadle,
undertook to mitigate their suffer
ings and to build a proper lazaretto
for them. The sisters arrived IN
Tracadie in 1868 to create the
change they had been planning, and
while they Immediately improved
| the condition Of the patients they
we've hauGic&iped1er many years
~ interference of tte ioc-I betia
4.- Nh 49,. ,,.tg.sIl --.tI