FASTING AND LEPROSY.

Evening Star, Issue 12026, 26 October 1903, Page 5

FASTING AND LEPROSY.

According to Dr Jonathan Hutchinson, .-vho has long been recognised as one of the first experts on leprosy, the institution of fasting, or rather the use of fish on fastdays, is the cause of the growth of that disease in certain parte of the Orient. "'Wherever Catholics missions are successful," writes Dr Hutchinson in the London with particular reference to India, *there is an increase of leprosy." He continues: "The facts which I have brought forward are such as to impose a duty upon the authorities of the Roman Catholic Church to reconsider their fast-day ordinances. The facts seem to show conclusively that in all districts where leprosy occurs—in other words, in all places where there is risk of obtaining unsound fish —the use of fish on fast-days ought to be forbidden. I ihava long ago and many times espreb-sed the opinion that neither contagion nor the crusades, but Christianity, was responsible for the prevalence of leprosy in Europe during the Middle! Ages. It now appears that what occurred then is being repeated inow in India, and, it is to be feared, in many other parts of the world. . . .

A convert from Hinduism to Roman Christianity incurs at once an enormously increased risk of becoming a leper. In most Df the Indian asylums ' native Christians' abound, and by far the larger proportion are Catholics. Conversion to. any of the IProtestanb sects incurs some risk, because it removes the prejudice to animal food Tvhich, to some extent, is* natural to the Hindu mind.; but conversion to a creed •which imposes the use of fish on one or tiro days at least of every week increa.ses that risk immensely. My calculation is that the risk to a Catholic convert is twenty-fold that of one who remains in the Hindu faith. If I dare trust my figures—chiefly those of the last census—it may possibly in Bengal amount to ninety fold." Dr Hutchinson admits that figures are deceitful and "statistics are often fallacious," but "the margin which may here be allowed for error" throws ]jo doubt upon "the general hearing of the facts." To resume : " Similar conclusions are -uggested whether we examine the statistics of Bengal, Bombay, Madras, or the Punjab. Respecting the Chota Xagpar of Bengal, the census compiler writes: "The great centre of Honwn Catholic missionary enterprise in this province is Ranchi, where its converts exceed 54,000, or about three-fifths of the total number in the province.' The increase, during the last decennium was 15 per cent. Now, it is in precisely this district that leprosy also has increased (from 4.5 to 5,8 per 10,000), -while in all the adjacent districts it has{ diminished. A fallacy which may possibly to some extent diminish the force of my estimates is that in some instances lepers who have been registered as 'Christians' may have been converted subseque.it to the development of their leprosy- I have no means of knowing ■whether or not this has been the case to eny large extent, and certainly it does not invalidate the records of the Bombay asylum at which the expression ' Salsette Christian J means a descendant of those who were converted more than three centuries ago by St. Francis Javier and his devoted colleagues. Most willingly do I bear my testimony to the temporal advantages which have accrued to these by their conversion; and it is because fish fast>days are no essential nor even important part of Christian ritual that I feel entitled to urge that they ought to be done away with. It may not be out of place here to point out that this preponderance of the disease among Catholic converts gives the coup do grace to the belief in the contagiousness of leprosy.''

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