Parasitic Diseases

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 08, 8 October 1908, Page 22

Parasitic Diseases

' It is in man's power,' said Pasteur, ' to make parasitic diseases disappear from the face of the earth, if the doctrine of spontaneous generation is a chimera, as I am convinced it is.' Pasteur dynamited the theory of spontaneous generation, and his prophecy in regard to parasitic diseases is gradually working towards fulfilment. A Maori leper — a victim of ' the most ancient and most human ' of all parasitic diseases — was last week sent from our Quail Island to his home in the North, after having been pronounced free from the dread malady. And from Victoria and New South Wales comes the welcome intelligence that owing to the sharp eye which the public health authorities keeps to sanitation, tuberculosis has considerably decreased in those two States. Leprosy was once pretty nearly as prevalent, in Europe

as tubercular disease is now. But the children of to-day may live to see the time when the consumption scourge is as rare among white peoples as leprosy is at the present hour.