Show LEPROSY However long the Milwaukee Sentinel may have been in possession posses-sion of the facts the paper just now makes them public that leprosy prevails to an alarming extent in Northwestern Wisconsin where it iB playing sad havoc among theN the-N orwegi 1g So far the loathsome disease has been confined to the nationality mentioned and hundreds hun-dreds of them are affiiced some hiving the frightful malady in its very worst form It can not be expected that the Norwegians will keep leprosy all to themselves They are a generous people and willing to share anything of this kind with their neighbors if they were not they could not without greater trouble than they are likely to take retain the disease for they are necessarily thrown with others and intermarrying with their neighbors Leprosy has also crossed the Mississippi and gained an abiding place in Eastern Minnesota that section now being one of the head centers of the disease dis-ease in America South Carolina California and Mexico being its other principal homes on this continent con-tinent The Sentinel has obtained a statement from a leading physician physic-ian of Milwaukee who declares that the State board of health has taken no steps to prevent the spread of the disease or prevent its further introduction He says that unless measures are soon adopted in the matter the State will soon be terribly ter-ribly afflicted The gentleman also stoutly combats the idea that the disease is not contagious except by actual contact with the patient He says it may be contracted by handling the clothing of a leper using a towel that a leper has had and in various ways heretofore regarded re-garded as safe The Sandwich Islands seem to be the great home for leprosy in the western hemisphere hemis-phere It first appeared there about a quarter of a century ago since which time it has spread with such alarming rapidity that today it Is said at least ten per cent of the population of Hawaii are afflicted by tho disease and ninety per cent of the victims are unfit for any i occupation As yet there is little cause for general alarm in the United States for outside the sections indicated above leprosy is scarcely known in tlJis country It has become somewhat some-what troublesome in San Francisco among the Chinese whose habits render them specially liable to the contagion But while the evil is inconsiderable its nature and the fact that it exists even to a limited extent ought to be enough to in dnc the national and state govern meats to adopt strict regulations for the prevention of the spread of the oral idy Wo have fatal diseases enough to satisfy the moot greedy and can wall do without leprosy |