MENACE OF LEPROSY.

Wairarapa Age, 7 October 1936, Page 7

MENACE OF LEPROSY.

NEW ZEALAND NOT IMMUNE. MAKOGAI OUR PROTECTION. (By A. M. Richaids M A., Dip. Journ.) Mussolini’s lieutenants will have an enemy to subdue in “conquered” Abysinia more stubborn even than guerrilla bands —leprosy! By reliable accounts this terrible disease has been spreading “like wildfire” in the ancient empire for the last few decades. It has even been alleged—though this is certainly a wild exaggeration—that now one Etheopian in every three is a leper. Information such as this shakes us out of the complacent certainty we are apt to possess that leprosy is a conquered plague. Actually it has spread in the last century into many lanNs where it was previously unknown, notably into our own Pacific area. Another fallacy regarding leprosy is that it is a tropical disease. But Abyssinia, though geographically so, is not climatically a tropical country. The last known case of leprosy in the British Isles was in the Orkneys, and leprosy still lingers not only in “warm” Italy, Portugal, Spain and Greece, among European countries, but also in Germany and France, and in “cold” Russia, Norway and even Iceland! It will be news to many that there are New Zealand lepers. . . . To-day leprosy exists on a comparably large scale only in Africa and India. In India there were something like 105,000 lepers in a population of 210,000,000 in 1891, i.e., one in 2,000. The highest endemic rate is in Central Africa where in the Belgian Congo something like ten per cent, are lepers. The spread of leprosy into the Pacific began with Hawaii where the first ease was noted in 1859. It so spread among the natives that by 1865 there were 230 known lepers in a population of 67,000. In New Caledonia, where it was unknown until that year (1865), there were 4,000 lepers by 1888. The most recent island to be attacked (1920) is Nauru where the disease has spread with great rapidity. A spread upon a comparable scale would be unlikely in New Zealand for leprosy is, generally speaking, a disease of semi civilisation. Savages are immune. The highly civilised are immune. Yet these statements .are only generally true. Cases of leprosy do occur every now and again in New Zealand from infection contracted abroad. If they were not promptly segregated no one in the country would be safe.

Until 1925 New Zealand lepers were kept on Quail Island in Lyttelton Harbour. Since then they have been sent to Makogai Island in the Fiji group along with such cases as occur in our Island dependencies. Of the 580 lepers at present on the Island from various parts of the south Pacific no less than a hundred are from New Zealand and dependencies. Makogai (the “g” is pronounced like “ng” in “sing,” and accent is on first syllable) is a former cocoanut plantation which was acquired by the Fijian Government as a leper asylum in 1911. There are five leper villages on the island each with its own dispensary. The sexes are kept separate, and so are the nationalities as far as possible. The Medical Superintendent appoints a headman from each village who is responsible to him for the cleanliness of the village and the good behaviour of its inhabitants. In cases where the disease is in early stages cure is attempted. Where it is far gone only mitigation is possible. ApaYt from the Superintendent and his Assistant the medical work is done by 26 nurses, of whom 15 are white. They are nursing sisters of the Roman Catholic Church giving their lives to this task in response to an appeal irom the Fijian Government. The Mission to Lepers (Protestant) and the St. Francis’ Leper Guild (Roman Catholic) care for lepers physically, mentally and spiritually throughout the world. But Magokai as the home of our own unfortunates has a special claim upon the goodwill of New Zealanders of all denominations.

While in its latter stages leprosy is accompanied by excruciating pain and disgusting symptoms, the pain of its earlier stages it mostly mental—exile, separation from family auu friends, and the sense of doom. Tokens of remembrance and sympathy from the outside world are therefore of enormous value to the inhabitants of leper stations. The Medical Superintendent of Makogai has stated that the good wishes and gifts which New Zealanders have been making every Christmas for some years past have not only meant continued hope, courage and self-respect for all but have “in no small measure aided the cure” of many.

Again as Christmas preparations begin to be made we have the opportunity to bring literally netf life to those who, in addition to terrible physical ill, are suffering the desolation of separation and (they fear) forgottenness in order that we, who remain may move happily among our fellows freed from the .constant dread of a terrible contamination.