The Brattleboro reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1907-1912, 1907-10-25
LEpRosY NOT INCURABLE.
Stupidity Of Bible Translators Cause
of Popular Error.

Stupidity of Bible Translators Cause
of Popular Error.
'Tis not only truth that crushed to earth
will rise again. Popular error, especially
if ancient enough, has the same buoyant
faculty. When the discovery OF case oil
leprosy in a poor young Russian servant
girl in Boston was announced recently,
the papers of the land fiared with head,
lines and wave of horror and dread
swept over the community. Frenzied
space writers gloated over the appearance
OF "the dread scourge in our midst," and
wondered copiously what the health Off,
GERS would do when the crop of infected
victims began to show itself. Similarly,
last year. when a Syrian exile was found
to have a mild case of ieprosy, great com
monwealths Wed with one another in the
savagery with which they drove him from
their borders, and when he was at length
found dead of cold and starvation in the
half-ruined hut into which he had been
driven at the muzzle OF rifles with an oc-
casional bullet sent through the roof to
keep him in order, everybody breathed a
sigh of relief and said Poor fellow! best
thing that could happen to him." These
are but exhibitions of the cruelty which
is born of cowardice and founded upon
the terror of abysmal ignorance. Few
things are more utterly unfounded than
the popular dread of leprosy. The preva-
lent conceptions of the disease are as
grotesquey mistaken as the famous detinl-
ton of a crab given by one OF Agasslz
students: "a little red fish that walks
backward" The great professor, You re-
member, smiled quietly and remarked;
very good, except that crab is not a
fish, is not red until it has been boil
ed, and does not walk backward, but
sidewise." The three features in the pre-
vailing idea of leprosy-that it Is intense
" contagious, absolutely incurable, and IN
evitably fatal-are almost as thorough IN
versions of the actual fact. Leprosy Is
one of the least contagious of all diseases
known to be due to a bacillus. Ten cases
of leprosy at large would be lesser source
of danger to the commonwealth of Massa-
cbusetts than one case of ordinary con-
sumption. In the great European hospitals
cases of leprosy are kept for months and
even years in the open wards, with ~ or
40 other patients, to be exhibited to stu
dents and visiting physicians, without the
slightest fear of contagion. White men
living upon civilized diet seldom contract
the disease even in the tropics, but when
they do and return home with 1t, they
almost invariably recover, and never have
been known in single instance to com
municate the disease to Others, not even
to members of their own family. Osler
relates the case of an eminent clergyman
who was a leper for 80 years without its
ever interfering with his work, or any one
save his physician suspecting the. fact. a
civilized community, properly ted ana
| housed, is in no more danger from case
of imported leprosy than it would be from
one of beri-beri, or scurvy, or cancer, or
club-foot. The leper-house or colony is a
survivor of barbarism and medieval ignor-
ance pure and simple, and as unnecessary
as it is cruel.
Instead of leprosy being hopelessly in
durable, cases in Europeans, which are
recognized early and given prompt change
of climate and food, usually get well or
come to standstill. Although due to a
well recognized germ, the Bacillus leprae
of Hansen, the chief factors in its de-
velopment are food and sanitary condl-
tions. Whenever these are brought up
to, or even toward modern standards, lep-
rosy rapidly disappears. Forty years ago
| Il was exceedingly common in Norway,
l50 years ago in ireland and Scotland, and
300 years ago all over Europe. Now 1t
has almost disappeared from Europe, ex.
cept few isolated regions like the Nord
| Cap. Iceland the Caucasus, and the coast
of Spain. 1t is still common in India,
China, Japan and the Orient generally
In Japan it has greatly diminished since
the introduction of modern foods especial
ly beef, -four and pork. Good food Is an
absolute specific against it. Though hun
dreds. of cases are known to have come
into America from North Europe and
| Asia. the disease has never gained foot
hold or claimed an American-born victim
! for over 100 years, except among semi
civilized communities. Lastly, instead OF
being rapidly and inevitably fatal, leprosy
| takes wears and decades to run its course
seldom proving directly fatal, but wearing
down the strength of the patient till ne
! falls a victim of tuberculosis, or pneu'
monia, of which most lepers die. Gases
arc on record where the disease has lasted
80 years without interfering with an active
and successful career, and the patient mas
finally died of some intercurrent disease
The primary cause Of all this lamentaole
dclusion was the stupidity of the English
translators of the Bible in rendering the
name of the group of contagious diseases
AGAINST which quarantine is prescribed II
! 7 cviticus as '1eprosy" In the first place
the term evidently covers number o.
different diseases or conditions, as SHOWN
bv tbe terms '1eprosy of garment" and
s.Ieprosy of the walls of house. Sec
ondly, the description given OF the DIS
ease is too vague to afford any ground, fol
its Identification with leprosy or anytn.ine
els Thirdly, the symptoms of Biblic,a
sIenrosy' mentioned elsewhere, in the
cases Of Moses and Naaman, the Syrian
viz, 'sscales" on the flesh and the turn
;nT of the skin "white as snow"-are not
only not characteristic of leprosy, but
never occur in the disease, The leper
skin turns dusky, purplish, blue-black, am
brown but M newer pt %9t among pGo the brown
pnes And though he may become covered
With tubercles and Jumps and ulcers, he
nractically never Scales" But the, popu
lar mind clings to its '1ittle red fish. :
Golfers.