7(5 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1757. 



expulsion from civil society. They required a general visitation of all persons 

 suspected of this distemper, that such as were found infected might be removed 

 into particular hospitals, or into some separate places. These memorials were 

 sent to court, which, giving due attention to these just representations, issued 

 orders for the required visitations in the most convenient manner, for the good 

 of the public and of the state. 



In the mean time the post of physician-botanist became vacant in the island 

 of Cayenne. The minister was pleased to name Dr. P. for it; and though this 

 island was much more fertile in philosophical discoveries than all the others, he 

 thought proper to change Dr. P.'s destination, and sent him to Guadaloupe; and 

 did not forget the article of the leprosy in his instructions. When Dr. P. arrived 

 at Martinico in 1727, Mons. Blondel de Juvencourt, then intendant of the 

 French isles, communicated to him both the orders of the court, and all the 

 memoirs that related to this afiair. A tax was then laid on the Negroes of the 

 inhabitants of the Grande Terre, to raise a necessary fund for this visitation, 

 thus made at the expence of the colony; and Mons. le Mercier Beausoliel was 

 chosen treasurer of this fund. 



Being arrived at Guadaloupe, the Count de Moyencourt, and Mons. Mesnier, 

 ordinator and subdelegate to this intendance, communicated to him the orders of 

 the general and intendant. Dr. P. began then to inform himself of the necessary- 

 instructions for acquitting himself of this dangerous commission, the disagreeable 

 consequences of which he easily foresaw. He had so often heard of these leprous 

 spots, that he judged it necessary to know, whether what was said was true: for 

 he could not comprehend that a disease, which has so dreadful an end, and the 

 symptoms then so terrible, should continue 10 or 15 years without any other 

 appearance than these simple spots, which in themselves had nothing very bad. 

 He demanded an inquest to be made, in order to satisfy himself of this fact : 

 several surgeons, as practitioners, and several honest inhabitants, as observers, 

 were accordingly called together, who all proved the same fact in this inquest; 

 which may be seen in the register of the subdelegation of this island. 



Rfiult of the f^isitation. 



1 . None of the patients, whom Dr. P. visited, had any fever ; and they all 

 declared, that they found no inconvenience nor pain; but, on the contrary, eat, 

 drank, and slept well, performing every natural function; which was proved by 

 their plumpness, which appeared even when the disease was most confirmed. 2. 

 The disease began to show itself in the Negroes by reddish spots, a little raised, 

 on the skin, being a dry kind of tetter, neither branny nor scabbed, and without 

 any miming, but of a livid red, and very ill-conditioned. The Negroes some 

 times bring these spots with them from their own country. The spots are con- 

 stantly found on every person troubled with this disease; and are in greater 



