Show leprosy declared no real menace in united states denver leprosy a plague of the ages is still one of medicines greatest mysteries but dr G W mccoy united states public health service medical director speaking here before the american association for the advancement of science pronounced it not one of our major public health questions as it is in other parts of the world in most parts of the united states there is no need for the isolation of eases cases in dr mccoys mccols opinion except tor for charity reasons or because ot of the esthetic sensibilities ot of the community dr mccoy believes that nearly all cases of leprosy originate only in florida louisiana and texas but because the period between infection and development of the disease is ordinarily from five to ten years and sometimes twenty years the tracing of the source of infection is difficult only about a thousand cases 0 of leprosy exist in the united states half of which are known dr ralph hopkins of tulane university ver sity and dermatologist at the carville national presented evidence of a hereditary tendency to leprosy and maintained that this justified segregation hope that scientists will soon be able to transmit leprosy to some animal in order to study the disease experimentally was expressed by dr malcolm H soule of the university of michigan who is convinced that hansens bacillus first charged in 1874 with being the cause has been grown artificially dr H E hasseltine of the public health service expressed the hope that science will find not only an animal that can be consistently infected experimentally but the exact way the disease is transmitted from person to person and a specific curative drug as effective as quinine tor for malaria |