CHAPTER VIII 

 LEPROSY 



T E PROSY is an infectious disease due to a bacillus, 

 ^ discovered in 1879 by Hansen, a Norwegian 

 physician. This bacillus is found in great numbers 

 in the cells contained in the leprous nodules, which 

 are characteristic of the disease. In its form the lep- 

 rosy bacillus resembles the tubercle bacillus, but bac- 

 teriologists have failed in their attempts to cultivate 

 it in artificial media and in communicating the disease 

 to lower animals, as has been repeatedly done in the 

 case of the tubercle bacillus. Nor has it been de- 

 termined in a definite manner how the disease is con- 

 tracted. It is not, unless in very exceptional cases, 

 communicated by the sick to those in close associa- 

 tion with them. Thus among the Sisters of Charity 

 who have for many years taken care of the sick in 

 the lepers' hospital at Havana, not one has ever 

 contracted the disease. Inoculation experiments in 

 healthy men, made with the knowledge and consent 



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