BY SYDNEY B. J. SKERTCHLY. 



the region with this special object in view. Meanwhile, we 

 must be content with the evidence at hand. It has been 

 necessary to reject much that has been written in a general way 

 on this area, for we have definite statements of experts of the 

 the absence of Leprosy from places which have been confidently 

 stated to be leprous. 



There are three well-defined leper centres — New Caledonia, 

 Avhere it is not rare ; Fiji, where it seems to be spreading ; and, 

 Hawaii, where it is rapidly destroying the native population. 

 The New Hebrides (Leprosy seems to be introduced there quite 

 recently), the Caroline and Solomon Groups seem to be quite 

 clean, in spite of statements to the contrary, and so are in all 

 probability all the rest of the innumerable islands that dot 

 Oceania. 



New Caledonia was quite free from Leprosy when annexed 

 by the French in 1853. About 18S0 a Chinaman who was a leper 

 arrived and lived with a native tribe for several years. He does 

 not seem to be the first leper, for three New Hebrideans, had 

 been deported as lepers a few years previously. As these natives 

 were certainly not lepers at that time, they must have ac(piired 

 the disease, and it is a fair inference that as Chinese who are 

 known to be lepers were in the colony, they were the introducers 

 as in so many other cases. By 1890 lepers were said to be 

 numbered by hundreds, and even Europeans had become ali'ected. 



We know that in these three Pacific leper-centres, the 

 disease is of recent introduction, and hence we are justified by 

 an examination of the facts above given in drawing the import- 

 ant conclusion that : — Fnnii till' ('/ti)ii'sr jinirinci's of Kinniiiini/ 

 (Uiil Fnhii'u, TjCjiriisi/ sjirriiil.s irit/i iliiiiiiii>iliiiiii iiifcjisiti/ in nil 

 ilii'i'rtiiiii.^, mill Jills fnniii'il (I )ii'ir fiiciis in llinniii nf ini/m nillrlcd 

 riniloKc. 



Ethnography of Leprosy. — We will now traverse the facts 

 above given from an anthropological point of view. Certain 

 startling results seem naturally to accrue, and they are so opposed 

 to prevalent opinion, that this in itself is sufficient reason for 

 brmging them under notice. 



Dr. A. Corre, in his valuable }iii!ii(ru's dcs I'ni/s < hinuls, 

 (Paris, 1887, p 575) writes as follows : — " Les races noires sont 



