CORRESPONDENCE. 



The Recrudescence of Leprosy and its Causation. 



As the readers of Natural Science would scarcely comprehend the full scope 

 and purport of my recently-published volume, "The Recrudescence of Leprosy and 

 its Causation," from the brief notice in the April number, I shall be glad to be 

 allowed space for a summary of my conclusions, the result of personal investigation 

 in many countries where this terrible disease is endemic. I can prefer this request 

 with the more urgency from the fact that many of the sufferers from leprous vacci- 

 nation are absolutely friendless, while most of them are without political represen- 

 tation and are unable to plead their own cause. In the pursuit of my inquiries 

 I have been repeatedly entreated to bring their intolerable grievances before the 

 English-speaking public through the Press, with a view of reaching the ears of 

 Parliament and other legislative bodies. 



These conclusions are as follows : — 



(i.) That leprosy has greatly increased during the last half-century, and that it 

 is prevalent in many places where it was formerly unknown. 



(2.) That whilst the opinion of medical authorities and experts varies consider- 

 ably on the subject of the contagiousness of leprosy, the preponderance of authority 

 is in favour of the theory that it is not contagious in the ordinary sense of the term, 

 but is communicable by means of a cut, sore, or abraded surface ; and this view is 

 confirmed by my own personal investigations. 



(3.) That other alleged factors such as malaria, a fish diet, syphilitic cachexia, 

 heredity, and insanitation are admittedly unequal to explain the rapid growth of the 

 disease in certain of our Crown colonies and dependencies, as well as in other 

 countries. 



(4.) That on one point there is much agreement, and hardly any dissent, 

 namely, the inoculability of leprosy ; and that the view of leprosy as an inoculable 

 disease, while it is most clear to those who take the malady to be due to a bacillus, 

 is older than the bacteriological evidence, and is not dependent thereon. 



(5.) That the most frequent opportunities of inoculating the virus of leprosy are 

 afforded in the practice of vaccine inoculation, which is the only inoculation that is 

 habitual and imposed by law ; and that the evidence here adduced is calculated to 

 show that vaccination is a true cause of the diffusion of leprosy. 



(6.) That the official information, collected by interrogatories and otherwise, 

 has not been hitherto of a kind to show how far vaccination has determined the 

 amount of leprosy in recent times ; and that any interrogatories that may be sent 

 out in future should not be limited to ascertaining the effects, as regards leprosy, of 

 hypothetically " pure lymph." When, on very rare occasions, interrogatories have 

 been submitted, they have been framed to ascertain the results of a purely hypo- 

 thetical system of vaccination, which is not anywhere discoverable in practice 

 (i.e., with pure lymph, and free from hereditary taint), and the replies are therefore 

 futile and misleading. 



(7.) That with the exception of two groups of cases — those adduced by Dr. 

 Roger S. Chew, of Calcutta, and Dr. S. P. Impey, of Robben Island — those reported 

 in this volume have not been the result of special investigations, but have cropped 

 up accidentally in the course of medical practice, and in some instances have been 

 published by practitioners, with apologies to the profession for presenting such 

 unwelcome disclosures. 



(8.) That the increase of leprosy in the Sandwich Islands, the West Indies, 



