| Show LEPROSY knowledge Is ia largely infer and the facts which come dimier w our individual notice and auw in some particular direction rally uy impress us more than ie which are observed by other ana no which perhaps may lead to rent ferent conclusion according principal theories in vogue in t times leprosy may be ac i B y heredity abond d by a diet of imperfectly ced or decomposing fish bird ird by contagion he a norwegian physicians for Aw y years suppo supported arted the doctrine v city and aid to this day numer vb observers servers in all parts of the id consider that the disease is eted from generation to genton As AB mr jonathan hutch Jb aswell axell show nand as all of us 4 know englishmen and others who have no family taint are occasionally liable to become leprous when they dwell in countries where the disease is epidemic heredity therefore has sometimes at any rate nothing whatever to do with its development were leprosy to any material extent hereditary hered itry we might reasonably expect to find cases among the descendants of the lepers who have emigrated from norway to the united states dr hansen who recently visited north america for the purpose of investigating this question found however that of the norwegian lepers who ho had settled in the states ot of wisconsin minnesota and dakota none of the offspring in some cases as far as the great grandchildren have shown signs of the disease di stase I 1 with the eminent exception of mr jonathan hutchinson the fish theory has now little scientific support Alt although bough the principal centers of leprosy are often in districts as on the coast of norway where fish frequently in an uncooked salted or dried state forms a staple article of food we must remember that the disease is widely prevalent where fish is rarely or never eaten e g in come bome inland districts of india china and brazil and that numbers of individuals in scandinavia africa and elsewhere who largely consume fish and even stale fish never develop the disease A belief in the contagiousness of leprosy was formerly almost universal u ni with the result that rigorous measures of isolation were nearly everywhere adopted but during the last half century the contagion theory has fallen somewhat in abeyance at least in the medical mind mainly in consequence of the arguments of drs danielsson and boeck in their celebrated treatise published in 1848 and of the authoritative expression of opinion on the part of the committee of the royal college of physicians in 1867 whose valuable le report as his royal highness the prince of wales has stated was drawn up atter after extensive inquiries carried enfried out under the duke of newcastle at the present time however the view that the disease can be contracted by the healthy from those who are suffering from leprosy is undoubtedly gaining ground and facts are certainly accumulating which point to this conclusion cl it must nevertheless be admitted on the one hand that there is a vast amount of negative evidence in reference to the communicability cabi lity of leprosy from person to person and on the other that the supporters of the theory are able to pro produce duce but very few and trustworthy cases which cannot be otherwise accounted for than by pure contagion in the words however ofa of a dublin physician who has pu published blushed almost as good an instances of the communicability of leprosy from one man to another as Itis it is possible to obtain one fragment of positive evidence carries more weight than a vast amount of negative evidence th important discovery of dr in norway that a certain microscopic fungus much resembling that which is characteristic of tubercle is 13 always to be found in the diseased tissues of a leper an observation which has been over and over again corroborated by pathologists in all parts of the world has had much to do with the growing belief that jy leprosy must be regarded as ap a specific dr phideas S abraham in the Port fortnightly nightly rethew r |
