346 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
insensible is incurable, but is also checked by frequent bathing. 
All true lepers come from the coast provinces. A similar disease 
is produced also among the hills by the eating of tainted fish 
and fowl. This disease consists in the skin becoming insensible, 
the nerves inactive, and the patient, who otherwise feels well, 
finding it impossible to walk. It is also cured completely in 
very severe cases, by baths, ammonia applied inwardly, castor-oil, 
Peruvian bark, &c. A third type of this ailment is the bone- 
disease, hak'ke, which is exceedingly common in Japan, and is 
believed to be caused by unvarying food and want of exercise. 
It is very obstinate, but is often cured in two or three years 
with chloride of iron, albumen, change of diet from the common 
Japanese to the European, with red wine, milk, bread, vegetables, 
&c. This disease begins with a swelling in the legs, then the 
skin becomes insensible, first on the legs, next on the stomach, 
the face, and the wrists. Then the swelling falls, fever comes on, 
and death takes place. There are besides, certain w^ells for 
curing rheumatism, for which from two to three years are 
required; for eye-diseases and for headache, the latter playing an 
important part among the illnesses that are cured at Kusatsu. 
It principally attacks women between twenty and thirty years 
of age. One of the Kusatsu wells acts very beneficially in 
this case. Its water is conducted to a special bathing-shed 
open to the street, intended exclusively for the men and 
women who suffer from this disease. 
Many of the baths at Kusatsu are taken so hot that special 
precautions must be adopted before one steps down into the 
w^ateri These consist in winding cotton cloths round those parts 
of the body which are most sensitive, and in causing the body to 
perspire strongly before the bath is taken, which is done by the 
bathers with cries and shouts and with certain movements 
stirring the water in the basin with large heavy boards. They 
then all step down into the bath and up again simultaneously at 
a sign given by the physician sitting at the back of the bathing 
