80 TlMEHRI. 



however, the College of Physicians furnished another 

 report, in the light of recent investigations into the sub- 

 ject, which materially modifies their former one, and 

 they now state that under certain circumstances leprosy 

 may be thus communicated. In the writer's own ex- 

 perience numerous cases have occurred in this colony in 

 which there could be no reasonable doubt but that such 

 was the case. It is manifestly out of the question to 

 state anything further concerning them here, but it may 

 be relied upon that the case is as I have stated. 

 Some of them were most heartrending, the unfortunate 

 victims having to be sent quietly out of the colony to 

 prevent the matter from becoming known. One case in 

 Georgetown made a deep impression with regard to the 

 danger people run. A respectable young lad became 

 leprous through, as I believe, playing with a boy who 

 had leprosy, and who lived further down the street. 

 When seen, he was in an advanced stage of tubercular 

 leprosy, covered with sores, and he was sent home and 

 treated by the late Sir ERASMUS WILSON, and the family 

 left the house. I subsequently learnt that another family 

 shortly after took over the same house without its having 

 undergone any purification or disinfecting, and it must 

 be remembered the boy had been confined for months to 

 one room and was covered with these sores. Had he died 

 of some endemic disease, considered contagious, but 

 questionably so, how much money would have been spent 

 on painting, papering, &c, by the authorities! But in 

 the case mentioned no such steps were considered 

 necessary. I am not finding fault with disinfection as 

 carried out in Georgetown — far from it ; it is merely 

 contended that owing to the opinions that the Executive 



