The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1913-01-11
LEPERS WALK STREETS OF
AMERICAN CITIES AT
WILL, SAYS SPECIALIST

That nearly every big city of the
United States and Canada has it's lep
ers, who walk the streets at will, with
out the knowledge of other pedestrians
who rub elbows with them, is the be-
lief of many physicians who have in
vestigated the subject. DR.. L. Dun
can Buckley, one of the greatest living
authorities on skin diseases, declared
not long ago that there were proba5-
ly forty lepers in New York City alone,
but added that they were absolutely
harmless to their fellowmen.
DR.. Buckley. who has made a life
study of Ieprosy and allied diseases,
was born, in New York sixty-eight
years ago tomorrow, Jan. IL, 1s45.
After graduating at Yale and the Col
Iege of Physicians and Surgeons, ne
spent several years abroad, studying
dermatoIogy under the greatest Euro
pean specialists. He first came into
international prominence when, in
1909, he brought to New York John
Early, whose sad plight as an alleg-
ed 1eper attracted worldwide sympathy
except from the people of commun1-
ties who treated the unfortunate man
as human football, kicking him
from place to place, and shrieking the
old cry, 'unclean! unclean!"
The fear of lepers. say the special
lists, is largely based on the Bible ac-
count of the disease, which describes
it as loathsome beyond all others, and
highly contagious. This is true of the
ma1ady in some climates, the doctors
say, but in this climate the disease is
not communicable from one person to
another, and rarely develops the hid
eOus form that it takes in the Orient.
DR.. Buckley has had Iepers under
his care almost continuously for over
forty years. On one occasion he ex-
hibited twelve lepers at a meeting of
the Academy of Medicine. On an
other occasion he collected a dozen
| Iepers for a clinic and lecture in San
Francisco. He has also toured the
world, visiting most of the countries
where leprosy is most common and
where it assumes its worst aspects.
II freely touch a leper us L would
any other person. declared the emin-
ent specialist, f-and afterward take no
| other precaution than washing my
| hands. My first 1eprosy case was in
! 1858, when 1 was an inferno in a New
| York hospital. This was one of the
worst cases of 1eprosy 1 have ever
| seen in America. The fingers of the
| 1eper were gone his face was distort-
| ed and one leg was so affected that
when It was amputated, without an
anaenthettc, he felt no pain. This
was before the days of antiseptics
and no precautions were taken against
infection by myself or the other ply
sicians.'
Many brave priests, missionaries
and sisters have spent their lives
among the lepers in Oriental coun-
| tries, and few have ever contracted
the disease. Father Clement, who
| died few years ago in Hawaii, spent
over forty-fve years among the lep-
ers of Molokai. Dominican nuns
! have for forty-fVe years been in
charge of the Trinidad Leper Asylum
and sister has ever developed tHa
| disease, although their aGsocia ton
with the. poor wretches necessitates
| daily contact with the diseased flesh
At the Ieper hospital near Madras, In
dia from 100 to 200 patients are un-
der the care of physicians and nurses
| and this institution has afforded an
other striking instance of the non-con-
ltagiousness of the disease.