1900 THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS 159 



till late into the last century, and the last known case of a 

 Scotch leper was a patient from Zetland who died in an 

 Edinburgh hospital in 1798. 



These Shetland lepers seem to have been sent to the 

 Island of Papua, and the Session Books of Wales show the 

 expense incurred in keeping them there from 1736-40. 



But for over 100 years leprosy may be said to have been 

 absolutely extinct in the United Kingdom, though cases 

 are occasionally noticed almost every year, but in all these 

 cases the disease has invariably been contracted during a 

 residence of the patient in some other country. It has 

 never died out in Iceland, and in Norway it exists to this 

 day to a very serious extent. At the present moment 

 there are about 1500 cases, mostly in two leper establish- 

 ments, though 40 years ago there were over double that 

 number. 



In Italy there are a few spots where the disease still 

 lingers, and also in Sicily, Spain, Hungary and Turkey ; 

 but these spots are extremely limited in area, and the 

 number of cases very few indeed. With these excep- 

 tions, this malady may be said to be non-existent in 

 Europe. Throughout Asia it is, however, still very active, 

 in British India it is believed there are always at least 

 200,000 lepers. In China there are districts where a 

 very large proportion of the people are affected ; the disease 

 is found throughout Japan except in the Loo Choo Islands, 

 and, generally speaking, lepers are met with everywhere in 

 the Tropics. In the Brazils the malady is virulent, and in 

 many other parts of South America ; but in North America 

 it does not exist except in Mexico, where there are many 

 cases ; in California, where some leper spots exist, trace- 

 able to Chinese settlers ; in Louisiana, where a few leper 

 areas are to be seen, and in a Norwegian Colony in New 

 Brunswick, where it was clearly imported from Norway. 

 Broadly speaking, it may be said that, over by far the 



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