LEPROSY 333 



Leprosy 



Leprosy, elephantiasis Graecorum or true elephantiasis 

 is a disease of which we have records from the earliest 

 times. It was undoubtedly somewhat prevalent in the 

 British Isles from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, 

 as the many leper houses and enactments against lepers 

 testify, though no doubt other skin diseases, psoriasis, 

 lupus, etc., were at that early period of medical diagnosis 

 confounded with it. At the present day leprosy, although 

 extinct in the British Isles, may be said to have a world- 

 wide distribution, for it is met with in Iceland and Scan- 

 dinavia, Russia and the Mediterranean coasts ; in Persia, 

 India, China, Siberia, and Japan ; in Africa from north to 

 south ; in many districts of the American continent ; and 

 in the Pacific Islands. Three varieties of leprosy are 

 described the tuberculated or nodular, the anaesthetic, 

 and the mixed. 



The mode of spread is probably by personal contact 

 (though possibly insects play some part), and throughout 

 ancient and mediaeval times leprosy was considered to 

 be a contagious and communicable disease, as witness the 

 stringent regulations in the Mosaic and other laws for the 

 segregation of lepers. J. Hutchinson supposed that fish 

 in the diet, particularly if stale, decomposed, or badly 

 cured, in some way is a causative factor ; but he is 

 practically alone in this view. 



A bacillus, the Bacillus leprce, is abundant in the tissues 

 and was discovered by Hansen in 1879. In form it 

 resembles the tubercle bacillus, but is slightly more slender ; 

 it probably does not form spores, though in stained pre- 

 parations the same irregularity in staining namely, the 

 occurrence of unstained intervals, the so-called " beading *' 

 is met with as in the tubercle bacillus, and is assumed 

 by some to be due to the presence of spores. The organism 



