New Light on Leprosy.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXX, Issue 1513, 10 May 1898, Page 3

New Light on Leprosy.

Startling Innovation in New York. In the future lepers will he allowed to walk the streets of New York with Just as much freedom and with the same immunity from arrest as is enjoyed hy that part of mankind free from the dreaded disease. The statement is official. It comes direct from President Wilson, of the Board of Health.

“ Under no circumstances,” he said recently, will the “ Board of Health of New York city ever again recognise leprosy as a disease that should be isolated.” The best experts in the city of New York have declared that it is not a contagious disease, and that with the conditions existing in New York it is entirely unnecessary to isolate those suffering with it. This statement was brought out when President Wilson was asked about the recent escape of the four lepers from North Brother Island.

For more than a year three sufferers from the scourge have been isolated on North Brother Island. Time and again each of them has expressed a desire for freedom, but on account of the precedent established by Dr Joseph Bryant and Dr Edison of isolating lepers they were kept in strict seclusion Dr George B. Fowler, the medical adviser of the Board of Health, has protested against the isolation of these men, claiming that leprosy is not a contagious disease. This contention of the New York specialists in skin diseases is in direct contradiction to the conclusion arrived at by the international leprosy conference, yvhich closed its session in Berlin a few days ago. The conference, which was attended by the most eminent and learned leprosy specialists in the world, decided ; The leprosy baccillus is tho true cause of the disease. Leprosy is contagious, but’ not hereditary.— Exchange.