The Leper Village near Canton. 457 



But the Chinese believe leprosy not alone hereditary, but 

 also infectious through the very slightest contact. Hence 

 the father abandons his own child ; the children flee from their 

 parents : they will not eat and drink with them, will not sit 

 in their company, will not use the chairs which have been 

 sat upon by the leper, until at least the surrounding atmo- 

 sphere has been fumigated with a torch. Even the law 

 declares leprosy to be a contagious disease. A wealthy 

 leper durst not venture to leave his own room, where he is 

 excluded from all communication with the outer world, with- 

 out exposing himself to tlie danger of being arrested by the 

 police, and mulcted in a heavy fine, or else sent to what is 

 called the Leper village near Canton, an abode of human woe 

 and misery, which even the leprous regard with horror.* 



As the Chinese physicians regard leprosy as a taint of the 

 blood, and in their treatment adopt Hahnemann's principle 

 of similia similibiis ciiranturj they prescribe by way of 



* In the Leper village near Canton, which is under the superintendence of a 

 Chinese physician, there are about 100 lepers of both sexes, each of whom receives 

 about 20 cash (not quite one penny) daily for his support. The superintendents 

 stated to Dr. Hobson, who repeatedly visited the village, as the result of their 

 many years' experience and observations, that leprosy is not in every case transmitted 

 from parents to children ; that several wives of leprous persons have no trace what- 

 ever of the disease, but that these women in all probability belong to those of the 

 third and fourth generation, who wholly escape. The Chinese overseers and attend- 

 ants, however, can have had as little opportunity for remarking upon the breaking 

 out of leprosy among the children of those whose parents were entirely exempt from 

 it as they had of informing themselves with accuracy as to the various forms and 

 rapid diffusion of the disease in the case of the one, or its mild type and gradual 

 disappearance in the other. Perspiration or suppiu-ation in the diseased parts are 

 never remarked in these patients. 



