Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1916-02-25
PART /.
BY WOODS HUTCHINSON, NJ. ID.

By WOODS HUTCHINSON, NJ. ID.
Leprosy. instead of spreading and
threatening civilization, is dwindling and
disappearing almost as rapidly as the
buffalo. But while there is no disputing
the cheering fact. the most singular thing
Is that We must frankly confess OUR
selves utterly at a loss to account for IL.
All we can say Ia, that with the COM
ing Of the improved living conditions of
civilization, better and more varied and
abundant food, better housing, better
drainage. cleaner and more comfortable
habits Of life and work. leprosy rapidly
dies out and disappears.
The same process is still going on in
all the tropical and sub-tropical colonies
Of the western nations, where ieprosy
still exists
1t II customary to attribute a large
share Of this decline and disappearance
to active measures OF isolation and
aggregation. gathering the known lepers
together into colonies. But this would
hardly bear scrutiny for two reasons
First, because It rests upon the second
great popular misconception that the
disease Is acutely and extremely con-
tagious or catching, whereas. as a mat
ter OF fact, leprosy Is one Of the most
feebly contagious and slowly and uncer-
tainly spreading infectious diseases
known. The children Of leprous father
or mother. for instance. show no higher
percentage OF the disease than the rest
of the community In which they live
and it is comparatively seldom that one
case of the disease Is FOLLOWED by an
other in the same family or household
When two cases do occurs in the same
family they usually appear either sim
ultaneously or so widely separated as to
have no detachable connection with one
another, and are probably due to COM
mon living conditions.
After thousand years OF intimate
familiarity with the disease and nearly
half a century OF tireless modern bac-
THEOLOGICAL research. we know no more
OF how leprosy spreads from one victim
to another than we did in the dark
ages.
One consoling fact however, IL almost
absolutely certain. and that is, that It
does not pass by direct personal contact
! OF the tens Of thousands OF leperS under
careful observation in Norway and in
tropical colonies for the last forty years
not one has ever been proved TO trans
init the disease directly. either to an
other member OF the family or household
| or to his doctor, nurse or attendants
The pitiful and dramatic case of
| Father Damien, the devoted martyr
priestSOf Molokai. was a one-in-twenty-
thousand exception, and the strong
probability and belief Of experts is, that
he contracted the disease as about one
white man in 10000 may do. from sim
| ply living In the climate and on the
food and under the conditions of the
| islands
The best authorities are inclined 10 the
opinion that the disease is transmitted
indirectly either through infected or con-
taminated food or through the bite Of
some blood-sucking insect (the mosquito
was again accused here. but there is not
sufficient evidence against him as YETI.
or throughS tlie medium OF some domestic
animal. or house-infesting vermin. as
plague, for instance, ia carried by the
rat and the flea I'm combination
What makes our check and complete
puzzle the more exasperating Is that
through the genius OF Hansen, the
famous Norwegian bacteriologist. we
have known the germ or bacillus con-
| cerned for nearly thirty years past and
depend on its presence or absence 70
/ diagnose or determine the nature OF a
suspected case. But we have been
/ utterly unable to cause the germ 10