LEPROSY, a disease which attacks the human race in Europe, Asia, and Africa. It appears on the skin of the body in various forms, but Euro pean medical men regard it as a constitutional ailment. Their number in all India in 1881 was 131,968, of whom 98,982 were males, 785 were under five years of age, 100,991 Hindus, and 24,376 Muhammadans :— Ajmir, 29 Madras Presidency, 14,600 Assam, . . . . 3,315 N.W. Provinces, . 18,255 Bengal, . . . . 56,523 Panjab, . . . . 9,734 Berar, . . . . 3,748 Baroda, 624 Bombay Presidency,12,382 Central India, . 13 Burma, . . . . 2,589 Cochin, 148 Central Provinces, 6,443 Hyderabad, . 2,989 Coorg, 43 Mysore, 533 The disease is not ordinarily deemed contagious, and the welfare of the community does not demand the complete segregation of those afflicted with it. But leprosy causes much suffering, and it fosters mendicancy ; also from the most ancient times, in all countries, their presence amongst their respective communities has been objected to, and they have been placed in outlying localities. According to Manetho, as quoted by Josephus, the Egyptian king Menephthah, son of the great Rameses, collected together all the lepers, and located them in the quarries in Lower Egypt, on the edge of the Arabian desert, but sub sequently mitigated their lot, and placed them in the deserted town of Avaris. These outcasts, however, sided with the people of Palestine who rose in a religious war against animal-worship, and Menephthah fled to Ethiopia.
Lepers are numerous iu China, and are only allowed rope-selling as a trade. Numbers of those not actually suffering from the disease, but sub ject to it, stand at the corner of every street in Canton, with coils of rope and hanks of cord for sale. The term Lizard, still applied to that part of old towns in which a rope-walk is situated, is supposed to be a corruption of Lazare, the lepers' quarter. The Lizard Point in Cornwall, and Lezardieux, a village in Brittany, are supposed to take their names from the lepers.
Dr. Bhau Daji of Bombay, who died about the year 1873, was very successful iu treating tuber cular leprosy, it was supposed with the Chaul moogra oil from the Gynocardia odorata.
The Puranas relate that Janamejaya was sorely afflicted with leprosy as a punishment for having killed some serpents. Hindus believe that a man who may have killed a serpent in his former life is sure to ho attacked with leprosy. Tho leper is regarded by Hindus as a loathsome, unclean being. After his death, his remains must be buried, and cannot be burnt without certain peculiar rites. Also, now, at the closo of the 19th century, a man who has not been blessed with offspring, and whose doom is sealed if he do not beget a son, considers that the serpent has denied him children, and thus barred his entrance to the gates of heaven. Tho disease of sore eyes is also attributed to the serpent's wrath. The worship of the serpent is therefore essential to lepers, the sore-eyed, and the child less, who, to appease the wrath of the serpent, perform many costly ceremonies of Serpa Sampas kara and Nagamandal. For the former of these ceremonies, a day is selected, either the 5th, Gth, 15th, or 30th of the month. The family priest is summoned as the director of the cere mony. The childless sinner has first to take a bath, and next to dress himself in silk or linen garments. A spot in the house is chosen, and the family priest, sprinkling grains of rice, drives away any devil that may have been lurking there. He takes his seat with the performer on two wooden stools. He gets some rice or wheat finely pul verized, and, kneading the dough, makes a figure of the serpent. The holy Mantra are then said to give the figure animation, and transform it, to all intents and purposes, into a live serpent. It is then offered milk and sugar. The image receives the worship common to other gods. After the worship, the Mantra snatch away from the figure the life just imparted, for they are said to have the power of giving life and of taking it away again. After the serpent is dead, the sinner assumes tho signs of mourning, which consist in shaving off his beard and moustaches. Then he
carries the figure on his head, and, having reached the bank of a river, he reverentially places it upon a pile. The figure is carefully fenced in with chips of sandal or jack wood, and camphor and melted butter are poured over it. The pile is then kindled with the fire which the performer brings with him from his house. He previously enters into a vow with the fire that it shall be solely used for the cremation of the serpent-god. The fire reduces the mass to ashes, which are carried to the river, and put into the water. The performer is considered unholy, and cannot be touched for three days.. On the fourth day, the funeral of the serpent-god or Sampaskara ends with an entertainment to eight unmarried youths, below the age of twenty. They are considered to represent eight serpents, and are treated with the utmost respect. The performer rests satisfied for a time that the ceremony will produce the desired effect. But if such he not his good fortune, he then resorts to the other ceremony, Nagamaudal. On one of the days named the leper gives a grand feast to a number of his caste-men and unmarried youths. The evening comes, and one of the Deckayavara or musicians, duly summoned for the purpose, scatters on the spot already selected some bruised rice, and inscribes the figure of a huge serpent in a large circle. The figure is worshipped, and then the musicians perform their part. They are the children of the Deva-dasa or temple women. Their band generally consists of two pipes and several drums. They dress them solves for the occasion in women's clothes, and put on various jewels. The chief man among them pretends that ho can represent the deity, and, going to and fro, reels about expressing the approbation of the deity by uttering some word; which are attended to as if they proceeded from the mouth of the deity itself. The musicians pro duce a variety of discordant sounds. While the drummers tap with their fingers on each side of the drum, their head, shoulders, and every muscle of their body are in motion. The musicians, the drummers, the observers of tho ceremony, and the representative of the deity keep going round the circle throughout the night, singing songs at one time in praise, at another in depreciation of the deity. To keep up their strength, the drummers havo frequent recourse to the toddy bottle, and soon become intoxicated. As the night passes away, the ceremony is over.
One of the severe remedies to which the leper and the childless expose themselves is as follows:— On the 6th day of every month, he entertains a number of unmarried youths at dinner. Though fasting the previous day, he does not himself partake of food in their company. After dinner, and before the leaves whereon the guests had taken it have been removed, he enthusiastically rolls himself over them. The next part of the ceremony is to cleanse himself in a bath, and for the remainder of the day he cannot take any food that contains salt. A rich Sudra of low birth is not allowed to observe any of these rites. But the compassionate priest comes to his aid, and offers him his services by observing them on his behalf. After they are over, the priest takes some water in his hand and pours it into that of the Sudra. This process is said to transfer every merit of the ceremony to the Sudra, while the priest holds himself liable for all the defects in the observance.
Mr. Apothecary Phillips has published pamphlets on the Gurjun oil treatment, and professes to have a radical cure of anaesthetic and tubercular leprosy. A medical officer with large experience in the disease, writing of Gurjun oil, says : I have no faith in any specific, nor indeed is it in the nature of things to find a specific for this fell disease.'. Combined with other remedies, such as iron, arsenic, etc., which generally help to form the so-called specifics, the treatment is only palliative but never curative.—Bunsen, Egypt's Place in Universal History, ii. pp. 500, 563, iii. pp. 188, 195.