Of the 156 Norwegian lepers settled in :Minnesota, only 12 or 14 are now dead. It is, indeed, strange that these lepers have not communicated the disease by heredity or contagion. It is because their habits in the old country were so slovenly, and because they herded to gether; whereas, in America they be come cleanly and live a less promiscuous life. Each of the lepers personally seen in Minnesota had his own bed and his own room. A. Hansen (Edinburgh Med. Jour., June, '91).
[Kuusamo, Finland, was for a long time a small, but obstinate, focus for lep rosy, 16 deaths having occurred between 1774 and 1800, and 22 between 1800 and 1823. In 1807 the lepers were isolated, and remained thus until 1845, when the hospital system was abolished, and the lepers were visited twice a year in their own houses by the medical officer of the district. After 1865 no further reports were presented, and in 1871 the medical officer reported that he was linable to find any more eases of leprosy in KillISall10. WALTER WYMAN, Assoc. Ed., An n I, '92.] Some of the victims at D'Arcy Island were removed from white homes where they were employed as cooks, yet no whites in the city here ever contracted it. Ernest Hall and John Nelson (Do minion .Med. :Monthly and Ontario Med.' Jour., Dec., '98).
Some years ago the Indian government appointed a special commission on lep rosy, and from their report it appears that they could not get sufficient evi dence to prove for certain that the dis ease is propagated by contagion.
There are many instances of a leper and non-leper living as man and wife without the healthy one contracting the disease. On the other hand, several cases are reported in which some casual inoculation of the leprous matter seems to have resulted in the propagation of the disease in a subject free from pre vious taint.
No case of leprosy has occurred among the attendants of the above asylum, who dress the lepers' sores and rub in oils and other applications with their bare hands. N. S. Rudolf (Iedical Age, Jan. 10, 1900).
The history of the disease in all coun tries, and among every class of people, points to the certainty of contagion. It has been traced to sources. Its course has been progressive when segregation has not been enforced, and retrogressive when it has. In proportion to the failure to carry out segregation, the disease has advanced. Families which in England
are and have been free from the taint of leprosy go to China, or elsewhere, where leprosy prevails, and beeome lep rous. Dressers, nurses, and physicians in leper hospitals contract the disease quite frequently. To Louisiana the dis ease came with some French settlers; to .New Brunswick with Frenchmen; to with Norwegians, and so on. In each location where the disease de veloped carriers had come from leper infected places. As in tuberculous dis ease of the lungs, there is no doubt a tendency transmitted, a peculiar make-up furnished, which is more susceptible to certain specific inoculations. This is evi dent in the Polynesian. Its menibers readily acquire leprosy, and the tendency is increased by their habits of life. E. S. Goodhue (Med. Record, Jan. 27, 1900).
The bacilli of leprosy are only found in diseased tissues and in the blood, dis charges, etc., of the latter. It is a ques tion, therefore, whether the healthy areas of skin and mucous membrane are not subject to reinfection from external causes (see ETIOLOGY) capable of induc ing the disease in any predisposed sub ject.
[Autoinfection in ehancroid offers a precedent of this kind, although no spe cific germ is at present thought to act as intermediary. Even in true syphilis well authenticated cases of autointoxication have been observed.
Reinfection in syphilis tends likewise to sustain the view that reinfection in leprosy is quite possible. A series of cases accurately reported by trustworthy ob servers have led Horovitz (Allg. Wiener med.-Zeit., Sept., '93) to conclude that "the doctrine that there can be no recur rence in syphilis has been forever re futed." In all the eases reviewed at least the secondary manifestations had re curred.
Successful inoculation experiments were performed by Bouley (Jullien, "Maladies Veneriennes," Paris, '85). This author inoculated a patient suffer ing from tertiary manifestations; a chancre resulted, followed thirty days later by general manifestations. These experiments were successfully repeated by Horand. Wallace also obtained by in oculation a chancre in a case of secondary syphilis. A large number of cases could be cited in support of the contention that even in syphilis immunity is not invari ably acquired through the first infection.