The Spread of Leprosy. 79 



symptom of the disease. The case had been pointed out 

 as telling against contagion ; but in their ninth married 

 year, the poor wife became leprous, and is now a fearful 

 object to contemplate. 



(2.) The transmission of leprosy by Inoculation or 

 Contact has been the debatable point with the pro- 

 fession for many years ; but since the disease has 

 been better studied, and the discovery of the Bacillus 

 lepras, a minute organism found in every case of 

 true leprosy, opinion is gradually but surely coming 

 round to the recognition that leprosy may be com- 

 municated by the unhealthy to the healthy to a much 

 greater extent than has hitherto been considered pro- 

 bable. In 1867 the Royal College of Physicians of 

 London, in their celebrated report of that year, gave it 

 as their opinion that leprosy was not contagious, and on 

 that dictum all recent legislation on the subject has been 

 based ; but it is now known that the report was prin- 

 cipally the production of one member of the Committee, 

 Dr. GAVIN MlLROY, who had paid a short visit to the 

 West Indies, and had not had time to make himself con- 

 versant with all sides of the question. In more than 

 one instance was an untruthful history related to the 

 late Dr. MlLROY, who had no opportunity of testing 

 the credibility of the witness's statement. For instance, 

 one man stated to him when the Doctor was in Demerara, 

 at the Penal Settlement, that he believed his leprosy 

 arose from the salt diet the prisoners are accustomed to ; 

 whereas in fact the man had cohabited with a coloured 

 woman who had leprosy, previous to his being sentenced 

 to penal servitude, and a child of this same man and 

 woman died at the Leper Asylum at Mahaica. In 1887, 



