NEW HOPE BORN

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 111, 6 November 1935, Page 25

NEW HOPE BORN

CONQUEST OF LEPEOSY

WIDE FIGHT PLANNED

Three million men, women, and children today share a new hope, born of the generosity of the American people. They are the lepers—sufferers from one of the most terrible' of human afflictions, writes Perry Burgess, president of the Leonard Wood Memorial for the Eradication of Leprosy, in the "New York Times." Their hope is founded on the fact that the Leonard Wood Memorial has developed a programme providing for international co-operation in an effort to ascertain how leprosy is communicated and why it persists in certain areas. The programme includes expanding activity in research to determine the cause and nature of the disease and study and experiment to discover the' most effective treatment. The writer has just returned from the scene of a great experiment, inspired by the interest of General Leonard Wood, American soldier patriot and physician, and made possible through the funds contributed by the American public. There in the Philippines are scenes one can never forget. There is Culion, where stands the largest leper colony in the world. Only a few years ago it was termed "a city of the living dead." Today it and the Leonard Wood leprosarium at Cebu are equally "communities of hope." From them has come the inspiration lhat now is committing virtually all nations where leprosy is a serious problem to a world-wide war on the disease. The history of medicine contains, few more thrilling chapters than the account of the centuries-old .warfare on leprosy. Childhood memories are j tangled with the biblical pictures of those miserables huddled in rocky caves on Palestinian hills, feared and shunned by their fellows, hopeless in the grip of a disease that knew no remedy. NOT A CURE. Even today it is too soon to assert that a cure for leprosy has been discovered. On the other hand, out of the experience and the research made | possible through the co-operation of the Philippine Government and the Leonard Wood Memorial, there has been born a real hope for the leper. From the colony at Culion 2500 sufferers have been returned to their homes, free from the disease in so far. as clinical and bacteriological tests can determine. There is contrast to this Philippine scene. There are literally thousands of lepers in Java, Malay Peninsula, Indo-China, and China. Always the same stalking tragedies—men, women, little children—worst of all little children, their faces ploughed across with leprous lesions, hands mutilated or gone.

A ray of light I found in all this

picture of black despair. It comes across the horizon from the Philippines, where have been marshalled the forces of science in which the i lepers' hope must lie, and where there has been achieved the experience which promises success to the world-wide crusade on their behalf. The Philippine experience has impressed not only the Government and scientists of the Philippines but those of virtually every other country! where leprosy exists, with the idea that there must be an international endeavour to discover such common | factors as may give clues for laboratory study and may uncover the i transmitting agent or agents. I There are two aspects to the world problem. The first is essentially scientific. The second aspect is social. The world must be made to realise that we are' dealing with a pitifully sick people, that no social stigma attaches to the leper because of his affliction, that in every country there is a chance to do something constructive, and that, as has been proved in the Philippines, there is real hope for arresting the j disease through early treatment. The programme for which international co-operation is in sight will be devoted to the determination of such common factors as may seem responsible for the spread or persistence of leprosy in regions differing both in climate and the living conditions of their peoples. SURVEY VITAL. Medical science alread3' records one instance where an epidemiological survey of the sort here proposed would clearly have solved the mystery of malaria transmission years before the answer was discovered through less direct means. It is in the scientific field and with the eradication of leprosy as its goal that the Leonard Wood Memorial is concentrating its efforts. It is (he only organisation dealing solely with the scientific phase of leprosy on an international basis. Across the world doctors are accepting exile in order that their research may be carried on among isolated groups of the afflicted. They face the handicap of battle unequipped with' the arms so necessary to their victory. More than upon anything else the success of these men will depend upon the improvement of methods and materials discovered in the research laboratories o£ scientists such as those who now comprise—and those whom the adoption of this greater problem will add to—the staff of the Leonard Wood Memorial. In support of the campaign to check the spread of this age-old curse and finally to effect its conquest lies an opportunity for a great humanitarian service. ■ I

America's official Census Bureau reports that about one in three of the homes of the United Slates are childless.