Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1890 — HIDEOUS LEPROSY. [ARTICLE]

HIDEOUS LEPROSY.

A Dlmiu that la Mnch More Prevalent than la Generally Supposed. The disease of leprosy Is more widely diffused over the habitable globe than most people Imagine. It reaches from the Arctic regions to the tropics, and is found in half the countries of the world. It exists alike in all mountainous and marshy regions. It is estimated that there are 100,000 cases in India. It is found in China, Japan, Africa and Egypt, where it is supposed to have taken its start. There are many cases of it in Norway and Sweden, it was introduced in Central and Southern America by Portuguese traders, into Mexico by Spanish immigrants, aud into Canada by individuals from France. There are two leper settlements in Louisiana. The disease has got a footing in lowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Dakota through Scandinavian colonists. Along the Pacific, in California and Oregon, it has been planted by the Chinese, and on the southern Atlantic coast by people from the West Indies. It has been carried to Salt Lake City by women brought by Mormons from the Sandwich Islands. There is a lazaretto for lepers at one place in New Brunswick, and three cases have been lately discovered at Cape Breton. The settlement at Molakai, Sandwich Islands, numbers upward of eleven hundred, where every phase of the disease, of which there are many, can be observed. This is near the scene of Father Damlen’9 Belf-sacrlficing labors and brave death, In Cape Colony and the West Indies it is said that the disease is on the increase. It is remarkable that a disease of such ancient origin should be so little understood. There is a wide field open here for scientists and philanthropists for investigation, to the end that relief or cure of this insidious disease may be brought about. Societies have been formed in this country and England, and considerable funds raised, qntte recently, for making a study of the disease in different parts of the world.