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to inaugurate the Session 1903-4. Mr. Jonathan 
Hutchinson, M.D. LL.D., F.R.S., gave an address 
on ‘*Leprosy in Ancient and Modern Times,”’ 
Sir Samuel Wilks, Bt., F.R.S., occupied the Chair. 
The lecturer took as his text 2 Kings v. 1 :— 
‘‘Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of 
Syria, was a great man with his master, and honour- 
able, . . . he was also a mighty man in valour, but 
he was a leper.’”” He argued from this and from other 
evidence, that leprosy is an ancient disease, not con- 
fined to the poor, but incidental among all classes ; 
that it is a fallacy to suppose it contagious in an 
ordinary way or communicable by the breath or by 
inoculation. Attendants upon lepers do not contract 
the disease except from the same causes that produced 
it in their patients. The leper houses that existed in 
England in the early centuries of the Christian era, 
and in medieval times, were not for the purpose of 
isolating a contagious disease, but as retreats for poor 
helpless creatures. They were privileged who were 
admitted to them, their friends were allowed to visit 
them, and they were removed in case of ill-behaviour. 
Compulsory confinement is unnecessary and cruel. 
Leprosy under careful and proper treatment is by no 
means incurable. A bacillus has been found in the 
diseased tissue which seems closely allied to that of 
tuberculosis. 
The lecturer gave some striking evidence in 
favour of his view that leprosy results from the eating 
of badly cured fish. Its prevalence is most marked 
in fishing districts, and its incidence varies closely 
with the habits of the people as regards fish eating. 
Leprosy was most common in our country in the 
11th century, when the Roman Church enforced for 
sixty or eighty days of the year the eating of fish, 
much of which was doubtless improperly cured. 
There was no leprosy in Russia, where the. Greek 
