THE SPREAD OF LEPROSY IN EUROPE.

Bruce Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 1933, 17 February 1888, Page 6

THE SPREAD OF LEPROSY IN EUROPE.

According to, Archdeacon Wright, rector of ' G-rantham, who has drawn attention to the subject in a letter to the Times, leprosy is being spread all over the world by Chinese emigrants. They have carried it to Calif ornia, New Brunswick, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Sandwich Islands, where it was previously unknown ; arid either they have brought it into Europe themselves, or it has been brought by Europeans who have been in contract with them. All the specialists in skin disease in Paris are said to- have lepers among their patients— soldiers, sailors, merchants, sisters of charity, missionaries, and others. V Epidemics of leprosy have broken out in more than one of the provinces of Spain, the disease having been brought home by sailors. There are lepers in the hospitals of London, Dublin, . and Glasgow ; and Archdeacon Wright mentions, on authority he does not doubt, that a week or two ago there wss a case of leprosy in an English village. In fact the two points to be borne in mind are themselves sufficiently suggestive of grounds for alarm — the first being that the disease itself has of late years increased in activity ; and the second that, in more or less degree, it is to be found all over the world. Any accidental circumstance which might develop its virulence would at once produce a world-wide epidemic. The train is laid and needs only to be fired. — St James's Gazette.