Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-07-26

peen confused with other diseases
with which it has symptoms in com.
mon; furthermore, leproSy has not
peen consistently reported to health
oihcials, and the public records must
Oh necessity represent but a surface
scratching. Then, too, physicians in
many instances have hesitated to
make q report Of known cases be-.
cause or the unwarranted hysteria
that would have been provoked by the
report of the presence of a case of
ieprosy in neighbOrhood where no
suitable facilities existed for isolation
ana treatment. Sometimes this
method of dealing with lepers has
been most humiliating to the leper
ana dlsgraceful to the community"
Ihlrty years ago, Congress was
asked to provide means for caring for
the lepers, but not until February.
1917, did Congress take action pro.
VldlnS funds for National Home for
Lepers. Even then it was for q home"
rather than hospital for their cure.
Inc State of Louisiana was far
ahead OF the Federal Government in
taxing steps to meet the situation, for
IN 1894 the State appointed a board
- SoiiIic vi " pIONiuc nome Tor
Louisiana lepers. Most leprosy is
found in the Gulf States, and probably
more in Louisiana than elsewhere. BY
an appropriation made in 1900, a State
ieper home was provided near New
Orleans, at Carville.
When the provision was made in
1917 for Il national home for lepers.
great difficulty was found in obtaining
4 site, for all localities fought against
having the "unclean" victims in their
neighborhoOd, until the Government
bought the Louisiana State home. In
1923, Congress appropriated $645 900
with which to enlarge the capacity
and equipment of the home. This in
stltutlon is under the charge of the
United States surgeon general and
the Secretary of the Treasury.
1t consists of a farm of 35S acres,
and buildings with a capacity for 425
patients. The treatment is largely
based upon doses Of Oil of chaulmoo-
gra-the vilest oil known, according
to patients who have taken it. The
dose at first is only two or three
drops a day, but it gradually increases
to 120 drops or more. The treatment
includes a plenty of nutritious food,
with wholesome exercises. and avoid
ance of brooding.
For the edification Of students who
seek higher learning, it is noteworthy
that the vocabulary of the disease
and it's treatment covers such gentle
words as Observation-Disclosures
acid and its ethyl ester" When that
fails to cure, resort is taken to strong
doses of "a chaulmoogrylam
larsonic acid" Perhaps that is why
Gen. Wood hopes that with intense
research in the very heart of leprosy
the science will he simplified, which
would be $2,000,000 well invested.
There are three kinds of leprosy,
of which only one is generally known
to the public. The use of chaulmoo-
gra oil in it's crude state was intro
duced in Hawaii some years ago, but
the specialists of the United States
Public Health Service are seeking
a means of administering its ethyl
esters" hyperdermically, owing to its
disagreeable effects when taken into
the stomach.
1T is quite clear from the results
heretofore published" says DR.. j. T.
Mcdonald, experimenting physician
at kalihi Hospital, Hawaii, that al
though there is a therapeutic agent
Cor agents) in chaulmoogra oil, of
marked value in leprosy, none Of the
attempts to isolate or identify this
agent has led to conclusive results"
The United States Department of
Agriculture Bureau of Plant Industry
Is now cooperating with the Public
Health Service by raising the chaul-
moogra tree, of which specimens
have been imported from India.
tCopyright 1927 by Paul v. Collinsl