6 THE ETHNOGRAPHY OF LEPROSY, ETC. 



as did the Jews of old, and as the Chinese do to this day. We' 

 were therefore compelled to reject ni niausc all such statements,. 

 and to trust to our own information, backed of course by the. 

 writinf^'s of those who had described specific cases. Our Map- 

 is in consequence incomplete, but accurate as far as it goes. It 

 might have been somewhat fuller had not Hongkong been so 

 barren in medical works of reference. 



Additional information may perhaps show that Leprosy i^ 

 somewhat more widely spread than we declare ; it cannot make 

 the scourge appear less virulent. It will be seen that we difit'er 

 from others on three points ; (1). we show that the disease is not 

 nearly so common as is currently believed at home ; (2). that it. 

 has a definate centre, where it has been endemic from time 

 immemorial, and where it is growing less virulent, but from Avhich 

 it is spreading, and has spread to other places with dire effects ; 

 and (8). in the ethnological distribution of the disease. 



It would be impossible in a paper like this to give details, 

 of all the places we have visited, or from which we have received, 

 direct communications ; these, which extend to 650 p.p. have 

 been presented to the National Leprosy Fund. It must suffice 

 to give short abstracts of the chief facts. 



1. China. — It turns out that China is not infected as a 

 whole ; entire provinces being free from the disease. Thus,^ 

 from some distance south of the Yangtse, the coast of China 

 northwards into Manchuria and eastern Siberia, and westwards 

 for hundreds of miles, is as free from Leprosy as Middlesex, with 

 two exceptions. These are northern Shantung, where the 

 disease is rarer than formerly, and southern Korea, in which 

 country the disease dies out about the middle line of the penin- 

 sula. The Yangtse Valley, from the neighbourhood of Shanghai 

 is clean for four hundred miles ; the next two hundred miles, 

 from Kiukiang to Hankow are leprous ; the following three 

 hundred miles are clean, and then comes another leprous patch, 

 succeeded by a free district. 



The southern coast provinces, Kwantung and Fokien, are 

 very leprous, indeed this is the great leper centre of China, and 

 the disease extends with diminishing intensity inland to the 

 province of Yunan. The islands of Formosa and Hainan are 



