The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-05-03
TO HUNT LEPROsY CURE
What DR.. Brinckerhofi Is to Face in
Hawaii.

AS a well-earned reward for solid
and brilliant achievement in research
work, the appointment of DIR. Walter
r. Brinckerhoff, as director of the Gov
eminent leprOsy research hospital, in
the Hawaiian Islands, may we'll be
matter of special pride to all Harvard
men, says the Boston Transcript DR..
BrinckerhOff is young man to have
charge of so important an undertake
ing, and the fact that leprosy has so
long and SO thoroughly baffled medical
science makes the compliment to him
especially notable. His task is neither
light nor pleasant one. His APP
pointment in indefinite as to term, but
it is fully known that years will GER
tainly be required to get valuable re-
suits. During perhaps five years, to
make reasonable guess. he will spend
the greater part of his time in the
Molokai settlement, which occupies
peninsula of about ten square miles
area, shut off from the main mass of
the island by a barrier of 3,000-foot
cliffs. He will be surrounded by what
is perhaps the most hideous deformity
disease can produce, made especially
ominous to the lay mind by the fame
and fate of Father Damien, who served
anu ulOu VII NAolOhoi. ho
such taking off is in the least to be
feared for DIR. Brinckerhoff and his
staff of assistants and nurses. For
them the leper settlement will present
little more real peril than the City
Hospital does for the staff there
To every American, however, the
establishment of the new leper hospital
and the progress of research under
Dr. Brinckerhof should be equally
matter of pride and concern. We are
accustomed to take the great medical
discoveries from abroad, but at last
the United States is itself leader.
Control of yellow fever contagion is
a splendid monument to our medical
men. The work of our laboratories at
Manila is the most thorough and in
many ways the most successful done
in the tropics. In the Molokai sta
ton the United States establishes the
first government leprosy research
laboratory on large scale in the
world. Few things, it would seem,
could be more honorable than to put
a stop to this dreadful disease. In
trying to find the way are fulfilling
our responsibility to the many thou
sands of lepers we have taken over
with our insular possessions.
Leprosy shows some striking like
nesses to tuberculosis. The bacillus
accepted as its cause. and discovered
in 1874 by Hansen of Bergen, Norway,
closely resembles In size, shape and
manner of taking stains the bacillus
of tuberculosis Another general re-
semblance is that leprosy, like tuber-
culosis, spreads most rapidly among
ill-fed, ill-housed and unsanitary popu-
lations. LeprOsy is not necessarily a
disease of the tropics, for it has been
abundant in Norway and Iceland. 1t
is Hess readily communicated than
tuberculosis, but given the injecting
source leprosy, like tuberculosis.
takes hold of rundown" and physical
ly subnormal populations. This ac-
counts, therefore, for the actual fact
that leprosy is nowadays found chiefly
in warm countries. Warmth itself
is not the cause, but tropical warmth
makes barbarous and ill-civilized
peoples utterly careless of sanitation
and inclined to lack physical vigor;
and hence they are easy victims of
this disease along with many others.
| Asia is pretty certainly the source of
| the disease, and there it has existed
| since before Confucius; Moses and
who ever prescribed the leprosy prac-
| tice of the thirteenth chapter OF Levitt
Gus, were comparatively late Corners
into the field.
From Asia leprosy spread into Eu-
rope until, during the 18th and 18th
centuries, it became plague of en-
ormous proportions. At that time
Europe contained some 10000 leper
! settlements. During this period, as
mark of the gravity of the disease
flourished the famous order of San
Lazarus, whose master, until 1868, was
required to be a leper. The disease
was spread and stimulated by the Cru
sades, of which Voltaire says that their
only permanent result was the inn
partation of this disease. But he was
wrong as to the time of Introduction,
for it is mentioned in Europe much
earlier, occurring even in Ireland in
the fifth century. The extent of the
disease rose and fell being most wide
spread when the vitality of the people
was lowered by long wars and their