The Spread of Leprosy. 



By John D. Hillis, F.R.C.S., late Medical Superintendent of the 

 Leper Asylums. 



SISX1T was the custom some years ago for long and 

 S 5§3 frequent discussions to take place in the legis- 

 gjBH lature of the colony with reference to the 

 spread of leprosy, and the consequences it entailed on 

 every member or class in the community ; but latterly, 

 whether owing to all danger in this direction having 

 passed away, or to the apathy natural to those who 

 dwell long in hot climates, all interest in the subject 

 would appear to have died out, if one may judge from 

 the absence of all serious discussion, and any practical 

 steps taken to mitigate an acknowledged evil in our 

 midst. The object of the writer is to endeavour to 

 direct attention once more to a subject which has occu- 

 pied his thoughts for more than twenty years, during ten 

 of which he was in charge of the colony's large leper 

 institutions at Mahaica; and to urge on his fellow- 

 colonists, as strongly as words can possibly do so, to 

 look this subject steadily in the face, unsavoury though 

 it be, with the dangers they run by neglecting it, and 

 to realize its extent and importance to one and all, and 

 not to rest satisfied till something be done to relieve the 

 inhabitants from the consequences of the spread among 

 them of a disease, already more than serious in its pro- 

 portions, and which threatens to become much more so. 

 All classes of the community are more or less liable 

 to leprosy, if predisposed to it by ill-health or skin 

 disease, and if exposed to contact with adiseased person. 



