Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 154, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1913 — IS LEPROSY CONTAGIOUS? [ARTICLE]

IS LEPROSY CONTAGIOUS?

Specialists .Still Doubtful Whether One Person Can Give It to Another. There is possibly no disease- the presence of which inspires greater tear in the public mind than doe* leprosy. This Is perhaps in a mea» lire due to the loathesomeness of the disease In its later stages, but it Is is most cases simply fear of a name. ' The disease or diseases spoken ok as leprosy in the Bible are popularly supposed to be as the leprosy of to-day, add the evident feu the leper inspired is the people o| old is held to justify the dread with which he is still regarded. The BlblV cal descriptions do not, however, fit modern leprosy, so that whether ths fear of the “leper” of olden times was or was not justified It should not be allowed to color the view with which the leper of to-day is regarded. Leprosy is indeed an infectious die esse, ,that is to say, it is due to ths presence,hi the tissues of a bacillus, after ths Norwegian ; . physician who discovered it; hut whether it is contagious under the ordinary conditions of modern life in temperate climates, at least, is held by specialists in diseases of the skin to be very doubtful. Of the few lepers known to the physicians in all the larger cities some are cared for in hospitals, others liveat home and visit the clinics or the doctor’s office from time to time; yet an instance in which another person has acquired the disease from any of these lepers is unknown.* There are many diseases more to be dreaded than leprosy because more rapidly fatal, more painful or more contagious; yet none of them except perhaps smallpox is more feared. Th* illogical terror of leprosy may be the cause of great cruelty to those afflicted. There are thousands of peo pie who show culpable indifference to the enforcement of the laws against spitting in publlo places, although they know full well that the suocess of the crusade against? tuberculosis hinges largely upon care In this regard. Yet these same persons would fly In horror from any place that bad harbored a leper.