PART II.] Statistical Records of the Leper Asylum at Almora. 



455 



people of Kumaon in establishing and supporting the institution. Lepers, although 

 in some cases kindly treated by their friends, are no doubt in very many exposed to 

 great ill-usage. The aversion with which they are regarded, and the disgrace attaching 

 to the occurrence of the disease in a family, are inducements to make outcasts of 

 them, and the temptation to do so is increased by interested motives, as by turning 

 them adrift, their relatives are enabled to appropriate to their own use the share of the 

 family property belonging to the sick. Under these circumstances an asylum, utterly 

 apart from benefits due to medical treatment, is a great blessing to the unhappy lepers, 

 affording them a shelter in which they may live in comparative comfort, in^ place of 

 wandering at large over the country as beggars. In striking proof of this is the rarity 

 with which leprous beggars, in spite of the prevalence of the disease, are to be encountered 

 in the neighbourhood of Almora, as well as the contented and even cheerful spirit 

 displayed by the vast majority of the inmates of the Asylum, which cannot fail to be 

 remarked by all who are aware of the miserable and depressed condition of similar cases 

 occurring in places where no proper accommodation is provided for them. 



We are under great obligation to the Honorary Superintendent of the Asylum, 

 the Keverend J. H. Budden, for the readiness with which he aided us in ascertaining 

 the fullest particulars regarding the institution and its inmates, as also to all the officers 

 who were in any way connected with the Asylum. 



1. — Summary of the Statistical Records of the Asylum. 

 The following tables show the principal facts in the history of the Asylum, relative 

 to admissions, number of inmates, mortality, etc., obtainable from the registers kept in 

 the institution. 



TABLE VII. 



Number of Male Lepers admitted into the Leper Asylum at Almora, ivith the numbers of 



those who have died, of those who have left the Asylum, and of those remaining in it. 



