A LIVING DEATH. 34.5 



malady is literally a living death. I found it 

 so sickening, even to look at tliem, that I was 

 glad wken I came to the last house. Here I was 

 shown a young child, a few weeks old. No marks 

 of the disease could be detected, unless it might be 

 that it was very much lighter colored than either of 

 its parents. The father was one of the worst cases I 

 saw, but the disease had not appeared in the mother, 

 except as a great swelling in the ankles. This child 

 must certainly die a leper, and probably mil never 

 leave the village where it was born. For this reason, 

 if for no other, the government certainly acts wisely 

 in compellmg all who have this disease to come and 

 live here together, where, at all events, it cannot be 

 widely spread. When it does not appear in a very 

 malignant form in the parents, it has been known 

 to fail to apj)ear in the childi-en, but to appear 

 again in the grandchildren. Governor Arriens told 

 me of such a case in Java. It was evident that the 

 man was a leper, though only a considerable swell- 

 ing could be detected on one ear, yet he was able to 

 prove that neither of his parents was a leper, but, on 

 further inquiry, the governor found that the man's 

 grandfather ^\^as a leper. This disease is regarded here 

 as an endemic, that is, chiefly confined to the Mina- 

 hassa and the Moluccas. Much discussion has arisen 

 whether leprosy is contagious. The doctor with 

 whom I resided while at Buru had been pre\4ously 

 stationed at Amboina, and while there a soldier who 

 was born in Holland was taken, and died with this 

 disease. In that case it was evident that the disease 

 was not hereditary, and, after the most careful in- 



