PART II.] Average Number of Lepers to the Total Population. 



449 



such of the lepers are entered as are actually more or less maimed by the disease. 

 It is moreover notorious that the female lepers in a family are carefully kept out of 

 sight, and consequently the returns regarding them are necessarily most defective. 

 This in a great measure is the reason why the returning officers have not been able 

 to register (on an average of all three censuses) more than one female for about 

 every seven male lepers, although the probability is, so far as we have been able 

 to ascertain, that female lepers are in reality nearly as numerous as male lepers in 

 Kumaon. 



It is evident therefore, for several reasons, that the figures regarding the 

 prevalence of leprosy in this locality, as well as in India generally, can only be looked 

 upon as approximately correct, and perhaps it would be nearer the truth were we to 

 take the average number of lepers to the average total population in the three 

 censuses. This average we find to be very nearly a thousand lepers for the Kumaon 

 District (not including Garhwal), or at the rate of 2-5 per mille of the average 

 population during the last twenty-five years. These statistical details are brought 

 together in the accompanying table. 



TABLE V. 



Giving the Ntcmber of Lepers, and their Proportion to the Population, as ascertained 

 from three Census Returns, together with the Mean of the three Returns. 



2, — Is leprosy exceptionally prevalent in Kumaon!^ 

 Assuming, therefore, that on an average 25 out of every 10,000 persons in the 

 district are lepers, or taking the actual figures of the estimate, 1 leper to every 



* These figures differ slightly from those given in the Census Report of the North- West Provinces. 



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