FIELD NATURALISTS' CLUB. 121 



Leprosy Fund. Pie regarded Father Damien's case in the 

 same light as that in which he looked upon Keanu's. "The 

 question," he says, " is narrowed down to this : Can a healthy 

 " person more readily derive the bacillus from an infected human 

 " being, or from food, air, water or some host which contains the 

 " bacillus or its spores? In any case, whether or not we accept 

 " Father Damien's case as proving contagion, it becomes, I think, 

 " an argument for segregation, for every leper may very possibly 

 " become a centre for the dissemination of bacilli or spores in 

 " his immediate surroundings and by reducing these centres the 

 " spread of the disease may possibly be checked. We do not yet 

 " know what is the life history of the bacillus outside the body, 

 " but it is quite possible that there is an intermediate spore 

 " stage which has not yet been recognized. This theory of an 

 " intermediate stage or host might explain the difficult}' or im- 

 " possibility of direct communication of the disease from one 

 " subject to another, as in the analogous case of tape worms and 

 " other cestoda, or again in the case of tin Filaria sanguinis 

 " hominis where the mosquito is the intermediary host. Against 

 " this suggestion it will of course be argued that cestoda and 

 " nscrnatoda are animals whereas bacilli are plants. This, h'ow- 

 " ever, will not upset the possibility of a spore stage and what 

 " nidus the spores may find outside the body is only of secondary 

 "importance." He then quoted Mr. Hutchinson who had no 

 doubt that lupus and cancer might be transplanted from one person 

 to another, and then cites Hanau's successful implantation of 

 a cancerous growth on a rat, which, if true, fulfilled Hutchinson's 

 prophecy. Referring again to Keanu's inoculation he cites cases 

 where 31 healthy individuals were inoculated without success 

 but adds : " Of course one positive case is worth any number of 

 " negative ones, but the latter ought certainly to be quoted side 

 "by side with the former." In his last paragraph on this 

 subject Dr. Rake was not prepared to admit leprosy is con- 

 tagious in the ordinary sense, but lie added that segregation 

 might do good by lessening the number of infected foci. His 

 views on an intermediate spore stage led him to make experi- 

 ments with earth from lepers' graves As a result he concluded 

 that the rods found had no connection with leprosy as they were 

 identical with similar rods found in soil a mile away. Salt pork 

 and fish, pigeon peas, bad fish, were also examined with negative 

 results. Dr. Rake then tried protective and antagonistic inocula- 

 tion but without any definite results. About this time he expressed 

 a wish that some condemned criminals might be offered the alter- 

 native of inoculation by which some important additions might be 

 added to present knowledge of pathology and treatment. He also 

 gives an account of a simpler treatment than nerve stretching, 

 viz., the passing of a bistoury through an ulcer on the sole of 



