LEPROSY i8i 



carbol fuchsin, and is more readily decolorized, is motile, and easily 

 obtained. It is numerous in nodular and scarce in anaesthetic forms. 



Not found in muscle, bone or cartilage. 



Apes have been inoculated (Nicolli). 



HOW SPREAD. 



It cannot arise de novo, hence it must be carried by one or more of 

 the following: air, soil, water, plants, insects, beasts, food, or man. 

 It has only been found in human tissue. 



Perhaps contagious. Benson, an Irishman, acquired leprosy in 

 the West Indies, and returned to Ireland. He died from it in eleven 

 months. His brother had lived and slept with him, and later wore 

 his clothes; in four years he, too, was a typical leper. He had never 

 been out of the British Isles. 



Note its spread throughout Europe, its rapid spread in the Sand- 

 wich Islands. In twenty years 800 lepers were isolated, and one-tenth 

 of the population was affected. 



Father Damien went as a missionary from Belgium to the Sandwich 

 Isles in 1873, and died of leprosy in 1889. 



Ten per cent, of the children of lepers become lepers. 



The success after isolation supports the contagion theory. 



Against contagion. — The attendants of Hendela Leper Asylum of 

 Ceylon have not contracted it. 



There is no proof that sexual intercourse spreads it. 



A child has never been born a leper. 



It is present among people who do not eat fish. 



All possible means of spread have their supporters. 



It may in all possibility be spread by insects, ? bed bug. 



As lepers are sterile early, if it is hereditary, leprosy would soon 

 die out. 



The fish theory is not now held by many. If it is a good medium 

 it should be good for cultivating the bacilli, but it is not. In Abyssinia 

 there are 8,000 lepers who rarely, if ever, eat fish. 



PATHOLOGY. 



How and where it enters the body is unknown. Perhaps by the 

 nasal mucous membrane (McLeod). 



They form colonies in the lymph spaces, and later are disseminated 

 by blood and lymph vessels. 



Few diseases show so many bacilli. 



Plasma cells surround capillary vessels and lymph capillaries, 

 which are much dilated. 



The Leproma. — Large lepra cells containing masses of bacilli. 



