: 454 Leprosy in India. [part ii, 



(Is^), to what extent are the inhabitants of the district of Kumaon affected with 

 leprosy ; (2nclly), whether this district is affected in an exceptionally severe manner ; 

 and (3rdly) whether the disease is more prevalent in any particular portion of it ; the 

 fourth question suggests itself naturally out of the reply to the third, — namely, — To what 

 may the ascertained prevalence of the disease along the eastern side be attributed? 



Seeing that we purpose going over these particular portions of the district, it 

 will be best to defer all reference to the physicial features of the locality which records 

 might supply until we shall have been able to obtain information for ourselves regarding 

 them : but one feature we cannot avoid directing attention to even thus early in the 

 course of the inquiry ; and that is the fact that the portions of the district which are 

 specially affected are directed towards the Nepal frontier. 



Although our exact knowledge of the distribution of disease in Nepal is exceedingly 

 meagre, on account of the hindrance offered by the Nepal authorities to the exploration 

 of the country by Europeans, still it is well known that leprosy does prevail to a large 

 extent in that territory. The neighbouring Nepalese and the Kumaonese are for the 

 most part derived from the same stock ; the hills and valleys which they inhabit are 

 alike, and so are their habits ; and it is highly probable that the customs which prevailed 

 for many centuries in Kumaon during the reigns of the local rajahs until 1790, and 

 subsequently under the rule of the Groorkhas, until they in their turn were ejected 

 by the British in 1815, continue unmodified, or modified to a very trifling extent 

 only, in these portions of Nepal at the present day. Now, with regard to the custom 

 of the country in connection with leprosy, we have very trustworthy information that 

 when a person became a confirmed leper he somehow disappeared, and there were no 

 questions asked. They were supposed to have buried themselves. This state of affairs 

 of course disappeared with the accession of British rule, but as British authority does 

 not extend beyond the River Kali, it seems not improbable that the Nepalese lepers, 

 foreseeing a possible contingency, cross this river, and thus avail themselves of the 

 protection of a more humane government. It appears to us, therefore, not to be a 

 circumstance to create surprise to find that the Nepal side of our territory should 

 be thus exceptionally frequented by lepers. This deduction is strongly supported by 

 the somewhat remarkable circumstance that, notwithstanding the distance between 

 Almora and the Nepalese frontier, one-fifth of all the lepers who have obtained shelter 

 at the asylum during the last thirty years came from Nepal. 



B— Observations conducted at the Almora Leper Asylum. 



Having- in the previous section discussed some of the general questions relating to the 

 existence and prevalence of leprosy in Kumaon, we now proceed to give an account of 

 the information derived from an examination of the present inmates and past history 

 of the Leper Asylum at Almora. 



The Asylum has now been in existence for upwards of thirty years, and there 

 can be no question as to the benefit which Sir Henry Ramsay has conferred on the 



