The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-01-11

| according to the laws of any country,
a leper is legally, morally and polit-
ically dead. The contraction of lep-
| rosy dissolves the marriage vows, and
| the doomed one is looked upon as
being lower than a dog; for the in
ferior animals will not contract the
disease. This was discovered by Dr.
Boeckh, the famous Norwegian physi-
clan, noted as being the greatest au-
thority on leprosy. He endeavored to
experiment upon rabbits, cats and
dogs with the leprOuS baccilli by in
oculating them with the germs: but
| they seemed to throw it from their
systems with no apparent trouble or
effects whatever.
When the young people awoke in
the morning they discovered where
they were by inquiries, the result of
the curiosity of one of the party BEING
aroused upon noticing the deformities
or those with whom they were sur
rounded. Dark brown and deep VEL
loWlsh b1otches covered the faces of
some, and in others the face and
hands were bleached to a CHASTITY
white. Some of them were actually
deformed and misshapen-great knobs
having formed on the joints, and in
other cases the skin had apparently
become loosened and stretched, as it
hung in tapping folds The noses
Became Frantic With Terror.
Their first thought was, naturally
enough, for flight; but the poor crea-
lures among whom they had fallen
knew that none should leave, and in
their appeal to the honor of the I'M
willing visitors they mentioned the
TACT that three of them had slept in
the bed occupied up till three weeks
before by young girl who had died
upon it of the loathsome disease
This but added to their now frantic
terror, and, after a brief fight at the
beach with the lepers, they managed
to get into the boat and got to land.
AS soon as they were home they lost
no time in getting to Hot Springs,
Ark, and there they stayed for three
months, at the end Of which time the
doctors told them all danger was past.
Inc greatest outbreak of leprosy
known to history was that in the
Sandwich islands in 1860, when thou
sands We're hurried to a leper's grave.
Inc islands were almost depopulated
but, despite the magnitude of the
pleague, 1t was speedily stamped out
so that today there are but few cases
IN the entire group Of islands.
There is no doubt, in the minds of
those who understand this disease
most, that what is known to modern
science as leprosy is one and the same
with that so termed by the ancients.
The external characteristics of me-
diaeVal leprCsy agree with the de-
Scr1ptlonS of it given by the ancients.
and with the pictures of modern lep-
rosy given by Danielssen~ and Boeckh
as 1t exists in Norway, and by various
authors in speaking of sporadic cases
that exist in America.
LeproSy is recognized today, and
always has been, as one of the rrbst
RI ,1o11
Isolated cases have been found in
America as far east as Chicago, and
among all classes of persons, yet none
OF all with whom they freely mingled
We're contaminated
Cases are positively known of where
the offspring of lepers have lived to a
goou old age, perfectly free from any
sign or faint of it. 1t is known that
1T is contagious only by incubation.
ana that certain predisposing condi-
tions must positively exist in order
that 1t may be propagated. Farther
than this no man knows. 1t is a dis
ease that cannot really be studied I'M
less the student has no regard for his
life whatever; and even this doctor,
of whom it has been told as giving
up his life for the sake of the lepers
of Tracadie, could find out nothing
while living among them, nor after he
himself had contracted the disease.
Lazarus Lends His Name.
The term "1azaretto" is derived from
the name Lazarus through the fact
that Lazarus was the patron of the
lepers duke, xvi, 20), and the first
"laZar- house." as they were then call
ed, was established in A. D. 70.
There Is no age at which it will not
attack the Victim-the youngest person
diseased at the time or the installa-
ton of the colony by the Canadian
government on Sheldrake island was
eight years and the oldest eighty.
According to researches of DR..
Boeckh, there are two distinct types
of the disease; one, and by far the
worst, is the tubercular; the seconu
anesthetic.
They are alike in one respect at
least-each has a preliminary stage
known to science as the "prodromal'
state. In this preliminary state the
principal symptoms are intense Ian
guor; deep depression and marked in
digestion. This stage is not at all we'll
defined. It may last for months
perhaps for years; or the dread living
death may be ushered in almost with
out it.
In the first. or tubercular kind, the
first warnings, after the prodromal
state, is the appearance of small, pale,
bluish-red blotches, that may be eth
er large or small, well-defined and at