The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-06-29
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HASKIN, Director.
Washington, d. @.
TRYING 10 CURE LEPRosY.

| the brief announcements of a cure for
ileprosy have been somewhat mislead-
| ing to the public, was announced by
| the public health service today. The
! facts of the so-called cure are that $50
patients of the Hawaiian leper colony
| have been treated for from six to
eighteen months with chaulmoogra
OIL and of these forty-e eight have been
! paroled from the asylum sup
posedly well. All those treated were
in early stages of the disease, as it is
1 almost hopeless to attempt cures of
patients far advanced.
Forty-eigfft probabl cures of the
most dreaded disease known to
humanity is an encouraging achieve
ment, but the public health service
points out that over one hundred cases
failed to respond, and that, on the
whole, leprosy continues to be a mys-
terry.
| Chattanooga oil, the product of a
/ tropical plum tree, has for nearly a
century been regarded as remedy for
leprosy, but the dose is so nauseating
that few patients can stand taking it
internally long enough to derive any
| benefit from it. Not long ago, how
| ever, some doctors tried making a
hypodermic injection of the oil into
| the muscles of a patients arm. This
was the method used in the Hawaiian
hospital. Why the oil fails to benefit
some cases which have advanced no
farther than those cured is not alto
gether understood.
Leprosy is one of the most battling
maladies known to the medical pro-
fession. 1t is found all over the world
and in people of practically every race
There are about 100000 cases now,
most of them in China, where the
people are either more susceptible or
the germs are more prevalent. Its
/ ut Tod
times to climate, too little salt in food,
| insanitary living conditions, and
spoiled fish. 1t was only few years
ago that doctors discovered that thera
is bacillus of leprosy. very similar to
that of tuberculosis, but nobody has
yet found out positively how this germ
is transmitted.
| When the bacillus was isolated. It
was supposed that animals could be
linoculated with it and a serum OBJ
tanned to cure the disease, but no ami
NAL has ever been found that can
contract leprosy. Four million and
more deadly germs have been injected
INTO a guinea pig, rabbit, horse, rat
or some other animal with the result
that the subject remained untainted
Almost the same thing is true of
human beings. OF the few men who
have allowed themselves to be inocu-
lated, one case stands out IN which the
subject really became leprous This
man, a Hawaiian convicted of murder,
was given the choice of hanging or
incubation with leprosy. He agreed
to be used as a subject of experiment.
In five years he developed the disease
and spent the rest of his life in a Jail
at the Hawaiian leper settlement.
Hundreds of Lepers Here
Doctors agree that all animals and
95 per cent of human beings are i'm
mune to the germ of leprosy. There
are at least five or six hundred lepers
in this country, q. good many of them
at large Some do not give them
selves up TO quarantine so long as the
disease can be concealed, while others
escape from the miserable and lonely
quarters into which they are thrust
by states which have not organized
lleper asylums. These refugees flee
from one place to another. They ride
on trains. street cars, handle money.
and eat in public lunch rooms. But
because 1eprosy is far less contag ious
than measles, and because so few peo-
pie are favorable subjects. the effects
of contract with these outcasts are
negligible.
Even when lepers continue to live
with their husbands, wives. or other
relatives, who have not contracted the
disease, there is only about one chance
in twenty of the clean persons be-
coming infected. This was long ago
believed TO be true, and it was defi-
nitely demonstrated by a census taken
at the Hawaiian leper settlement.
AS Hawaiian lepers are allowed to
have a member of the family live
with them on the island, there are an
unusually large number of untainted
persons IN their settlement. OF 90
men living there with leprous wives.
five only were found to have devel-
oped the disease, while of SO women
married to lepers, four had taken 1T.
. !
| for several years - occasionally as
long as fifteen years-after the per-
son becomes infected, only persons
who had been exposed at least three
years were considered in making UP
the figures.
Statistics have also been compiled to
show that leprosy is not hereditary
In Hawaii and the Philippines where
children born of lepers are taken from
) them and kept in homes for a certain
: length of time scarcely a case ever
develops, and these are nearly always
: shown to have been contracted by con-
, tact.
The idea of leprosy being hereditary
, is gained largely from the Bible story
! where it is mentioned as curse pro-
: nounced upon the servant of Elisha
: and upon his children because he OBJ
tanned money by fraud. In the Bible
{ stories the leper is always called un-
: clean, and in three instances the dis
. ease is spoken of as punishment
: Thus it has come to be associated witt
+ immortality in the minds of many peo-
a pie, tho doctors have repeatedly de-
! MED that any connection exists be-
tween leprosy and venereal disease
Another mistaken idea about thu
, disease is that the Bible leprosy wa
: entirely different from the moderr
form. The public health service say
. that it was very similar to the mederr
/ disease, tho the whiteness spoken o
: as the symbol of uncIeanliness doe
: not occur so often today.
e The two most common types ar
e the anesthetic and the nodular. TIL
e forme- is characterized by lack o
g sensation in hands and feet, unit
[ finally they drop off. In the othe
V form sores develop. Most often tn
n two are combined, with the result tina
r in the last stages. when the victim ha