Sharp County Record

LEPROSY IN CYPRUS.
An Interesting Medical Report on the Dread Disease.
There are three different kinds of leprosy, but all are merely varieties of one morbid condition. The period of incubation of the disease is long and its progress slow. In the blood and saliva of people in this condition microbes are found similar to those in the sores of lepers. These appear to be the chief cause of the disease. One report made by a medical officer claimed that malaria was a cause of leprosy. This appears to be refuted by the fact that localities which are specially free from malarial poison may contain lepers, while a village with miasmatic surroundings will not possess any infected inhabitants. Neither do filthy customs appear to cause the disease. Two villages near each other may be alike in malhygienic customs, and one will contain lepers while the other does not. A want of personal cleanliness certainly encourages and aggravates the disease. Some believe that eating putrid salt pork is a cause, but leprosy is found amongst people who have never tasted pork in any form. These supposed causes may all assist the progress of the disease, by reducing the vitality of persons affected. Hereditary influences are supposed to be prime causes of leprosy. There appear to be good reasons for disbelieving this opinion. First, the disease was unknown in Cyprus till it was imported by an infected person; second, in nearly a hundred cases, the history of which had been traced, only twenty-three had been preceded by leprous ancestors; third, nearly all the inmates of the leper asylum had relatives—many parents having children—at home unaffected. There are also many known cases of children born of leprous parents who did not take the disease. On the other hand there are many instances on record where children have imparted the disease to parents by contagion. Race appears to have little influence, Moslems and Christians alike being attacked, but the latter are more careless about associating with lepers, and are oftener infected.
The chief cause appears to be inoculation, but the result may be varied with constitutions, and the period of development is slow. The virus, apparently, needs to remain in contact with the skin some time. This appears to be proved by the fact that, of several people who dwell near a leper, only one may be infected.
This disease appears to have been brought to Cyprus by a band of pilgrims who visited a monastery about three hundred years ago. From this place it appears to have spread from village to village throughout the island. The dread among the people of those having the disease finally compelled the lepers to gather permanently outside of the gate of Famagosta, as this was a good place for begging. The disease thus becoming very dangerous to a large number of people, it was decided best to do away with all the lepers. This occurred about the beginning of the century. To avert such a doom, a native dragoman offered to give a farm, with the buildings, as a home for them, and to this place they were all transferred. Becoming dissatisfied with their isolated life, and not being able to provide sufficiently for themselves, they stole away, and again began to beg from place to place, the result being a large number of new cases of leprosy. At the time of the British occupation of the island there were 150 known cases. This induced the authorities to establish the Leper Farm and Asylum. The Government gave each inmate a certain allowance of bread and two and one-half copper piasters in money each day. A cemetery was laid out on the farm, thus further preventing contagion by burying in the villages. After this as lepers were found they were taken to the farm, and those who escaped were always returned as soon as found.
There are now sixty-three lepers on the farm, fifty-seven having died during the last ten years. It is estimated that there are about thirty cases on the island not at the farm: the whole number of cases of leprosy in Cyprus does not exceed one hundred.
The only means of eradicating the disease is by absolutely isolating all infected cases from sound people. For this purpose the Government has been requested to transfer the asylum to the island of Clythros, a short distance north of Cyprus.—London Practitioner.