LEPROSY FROM EATING FISH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7720, 1 June 1903, Page 2

LEPROSY FROM EATING FISH.

THEORY IN INDIA.

Dr Jonathan Hutchinson, F.R.S., has returned to England after a tour of investigation in India as to the cause and prevention of leprosy, especially in reference! to the Hypothesis which assigns the foremost position among the causes of the disease to the use of unwholesome food.

Twelve' years agoi tho Prince of Wales's Committee, which, was Bent to India, rejected this hypothesis, but Dr Hutchinson's latest investigations have convinced hjm that the committee if it h*d pursued its researches more deeply would not have rejected it. Dr HufcoWnspn's general con? elusion is that the facts do not controvert the hypothesis, while some of them afford unassaikbld support of it, the truth of which his inquiries in South Africa last year convinced him.

Dr Rutchinson's j»ur of Ipdia included Visits to Colombo, Madras, Lahore, Calcutta and Bombay, where 'he held public meetings and discussions, and also visits to the leper asylums at Ooiomibo, Madras, Calcutta, PunJa, Aeonsal, Agr«, Tarntar^n, Jullund'ur and Bombay. . Ho visited in Ceylon all the lepers who had bftfin ijsh eaters. In Madyas .and Calcutta each of the lepers witl) the single exception of a h.igh-ca«tft Brajimin, denied that they had ever eaten fish. In Bombay there wag one doubtful exception. In Agra, Tarataran and Jullundur there were several exceptions. Of the 500 inmates of the Purula asylum, all had habitually ea'fcen of lish, and many believed that tfijs hp,d camsed th^diseaso. oorn© had left off eating it on that account. The majority of thQse who had 1 not eaten fish were patients who bad contracted the disease in early life! In accounting for these, (Dr Hutchinfion suggests that !' commensfll communication " Bpreads the disease to a slight extent in a community where it has onoe originated, without ib becoming contagious in the ordinary sense of the word. .Commensal or mouth cpmmunioatiQn, conveyed the disease by eatlngi food directly from the hands of a leper, or otherwise receiving the bacillus by the mouth. The prevalence of the diseaße in* the whole population of India is not' greater tuan five in 10,000, which is abotit the came percpntaga as in Norway, but noj; a jingle district as entirely free from the disease. It is always ?nore prevalent in or near the fishing places. In Ceylon, , where the fisheriea are so unproductive that the greater portion of fish consumed must be imported, the incidence of leprosy is less than two per 10,000. In Minicoj, the adjacent fishcamprting island, where'the inhabitants eat fish four times a day, the percentage is 150 in 10,000. In the Bombay asylum there are 40P inmates, the majority of whom are from the great fishing district of Konkan. During eight years there have been no Jains and only one Parsee patient. The Jains are strict vegetarians. During the same period the island of Salaette, 'which has a population of 50,000, was the only Christian community which sent patients to the asylum. ■ The Salsetters are all Roman Catholics who . observe all fast days and the majority of them are actually engaged in the fishing trade. - ■