Marilyn Magdeburger, age ll, of Atherton, Calif., for her question:
What exactly is leprosy?
Mankind has dreaded the cruel disease of leprosy for thousands of years. The Bible stories of lepers fill us with horror and pity. We feel horror at its destruction and disfigurement of the human body and pity because even modern science has no way to cure its victims.
Most of us try to put this disease from our minds in favor of less horrifying illnesses. Throughout history, mankind has tried to shun both leprosy and the leper. This, of course, is no way to solve a problem but explains why little or nothing was done to treat or cure it for ages. To tackle a disease, we must put aside our feelings of horror and fear and investigate its nature in sound scientific terms.
Leprosy is caused by a rod shaped germ called Mycobacterium leprous. These cruel bacteria measure about 4,000 to an inch, and it is believed that they may enter the human body through open wounds and scratches. A Norwegian doctor named Armature Hansen identified the leprosy bacterium in the l870s. It is sometimes called Hansen's bacillus or Hansen's disease in his honor, perhaps because a new name seems to carry less horror than the old one.
Once established in a human body, the bacteria begin their cruel work on the nervous system. signs may not show for months or even years but gradually the nerves lose their power to feel and the wasted nerves cause weakening and then wasting of the muscles. The victim cannot feel s stab or a burn. His weakened body is susceptible to other, more fatal diseases. Leprosy itself is a slow destroyer of the body rather than an outright killer.
slowly at its own pace it mars and scars the skin with unsightly sores and bit by bit wastes away fingers, toes and even limbs. It is this disfigurement of the victims that tends to horrify us. It is one reason why the leper of old was an outcast and why India and China, Japan and Indonesia try to isolate their victims in leper colonies. Another reason is fear of spreading the cruel disease . It is not so easy to catch leprosy from a leper as our ancestors thought but so far science is not certain of how it is spread.
Chaulmoogra oil and sulphur drugs are used to halt the progress of the ancient scourge. Many lepers get no worse as long as treatment continues but they are not cured. Research and more research, open minded and fearless, is needed to close forever this cruel page of human history.
It is estimated that the modern world has perhaps five million lepers, most of them in the tropics and semi tropics. History suggests that it originated in Africa and China. From Africa the Roman legions carried it through the Middle east, and the Medieval crusaders spread a scourge of leprosy throughout europe. From China it spread through the Pacific Islands. It reached America with the slave ships and the world's best efforts to end it are being made in our own National Leprosarium.