312 BACTERIA 



declined where there has been no segregation whatever, and 

 therefore, however favourable to decline such isolation may 

 be, it would seem not to be actually necessary to the de- 

 cline. At the same Congress Besnier declared in favour of 

 the infective virus being widely propagated by means of the 

 nasal secretion. Sticker states that the nasal secretion con- 

 tains millions of lepra bacilli, especially in the acute stage 

 of the disease, and Besnier and Sticker have pointed out how 

 frequently and severely the septum nasi and skin over the 

 nose are affected in leprosy. Several leprologists in India 

 have recorded similar observations. These facts appear to 

 support Besnier's contention that the disease is spread by 

 nasal secretion. 



We may fitly add here the conclusions arrived at by the 

 English Leprosy Commission 1 in India: 



i. Leprosy is a disease sui generis ; it is not a form of 

 syphilis or tuberculosis, but has striking etiological analogies with 

 the latter. 



" 2. Leprosy is not diffused by hereditary transmission, and, 

 for this reason and the established amount of sterility among 

 lepers, the disease has a natural tendency to die out. 



" 3. Though in a scientific classification of diseases leprosy 

 must be regarded as contagious, and also inoculable, yet the 

 extent to which it is propagated by these means is exceedingly 

 small. 



" 4. Leprosy is not directly originated by the use of any par- 

 ticular article of food, nor by any climatic or telluric conditions, 

 nor by insanitary surroundings, neither does it peculiarly affect 

 any race or caste. 



"5. Leprosy is indirectly influenced by insanitary surround- 

 ings, such as poverty, bad food, or deficient drainage or vent- 

 ilation, for these by causing a predisposition increase the 

 susceptibility of the individual to the disease. 



'Dated 1890-91. The Commissioners were the late Beaven Rake, M.D., 

 G. A. Buckmaster, M.D., the late Professor Kanthack, of Cambridge, the late 

 Surgeon-Major Arthur Barclay, and Surgeon-Major S. J. Thomson. 



