THE BRADSHAW LECTUfiE 11 



importance of directing attention especially to 

 the treatment of the mother in order that the 

 children may be born free from the disease. 



Leprosy. 



Of diseases assumed to be hereditary none has 

 carried this reputation through a longer period 

 than leprosy, which was regarded as hereditary 

 as far back as Biblical times ; and this belief will 

 be kept in remembrance by Elisha's curse on his 

 servant Gehazi : " The leprosy, therefore, of 

 Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed 

 for ever." Its contagiousness was also recognised 

 from the earliest times, so that lepers became 

 outcasts, and segregation has for centuries been 

 the means employed to prevent the spread of the 

 disease. Hansen discovered the Bacillus leprgs in 

 1871. An Indian commission failed to trace 

 histories of the disease in the families of more 

 than 5 or 6 per cent. ; children born of leprous 

 parents are not leprous, and if removed from their 

 parents seldom become so. This, again, is a 

 disease which has been placed among ordinary 

 contagious diseases, as the result of modern dis- 

 coveries, and the belief in its hereditary trans- 

 mission which held sway for tens of centuries has 

 been scattered to the winds. 



