IS THE LEPER CURED?

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 331, 19 October 1908, Page 7

IS THE LEPER CURED?

A SCEPTIC. (BT TELEGRAPH--PIIEH3 association.) Cliristchurcft, October 17. Dr. B. H. Bakewt'll, of Onehunga, formerly physician to the Leper Asylum, Trinidad, ill a letter to a Christchureh paper on tho subject of the Maori leper patient recently discharged from. Quail Island as cured by the .N'astin treatment, questions tho permanency of the cure. Ho says: — "h/veii when a i-uic.has been effected the patient cannot return to the diet, environments, rind habits in which he lived when be onntr&ctod tho disease. I have seen many hopeful chscs, wlitfii i-vcry visible trace of the disease had b'-on removed, relapso, because tho |!:-ilimits went back to their old homes; and ri ; suin«l l,h» habits, diet, etc., which had been ihr, original cause of the malady, [f the .Vnori who has been treated in tln> Lyttcll/in f|;iarnntine station goes bach to some filthy Maori hovel, and eats sharks' (lit.li and other fish salted' or half put;ill. slrrps in ill-ventilated huts, and Ri'iierally fails back tc> the liahits of his people, it is almost certain that, if he does not di< of ncoideiit or some acute disease, he v--;ii be a (lacked by leprosy."