Although the methods for fighting infections diseases in Japan and preventing their spread have proved greatly, the problem of preventing the spread of leprosy has not been given proportionate study' for attention. The unfortunate who has contracted this dises as a social outcast and done little or nothing during past few years in coping with this important social and medical question, foreign missionaries have made and are making to-day a heroic and creditable effort to minis ter to the wants of those who) suffer from this dread scourge, the principal of such foreign efforts being directed by the American Mission for Lepers, of which Dr. Albert Oltmans is chief, and the Kusatsu Leper Asylum, over which a heroic Englishwoman, a veritable feminine Father Damien, presides, ministering personally to those afflicted. "The name of this brave English lady is Mra Cornwall-Leg!
According to investigations made!
the Department of Home Affairs, the number of lepers in this country, in 1904, was 80,357, 'The second report, made some' years later, set the number down at 23,815, while the third, made recently, shows a. total of 16,262, These investiga tions, however, were made by the! police for the Home Department, and the Japshese press refuses to regard the figures as correct, the ground that the police have not any medical knowledge. The reports of Army authorities on lepers, based on examination of conscripts, show that the number has not.
[changed much from what it was in 1004, In' Japan, lepers are allowed to live in any part of the country. In! Kobe, for instance, one is accosted by sorely-stricken leper beggars in ome of the principal thoroughfares. One does not come across them in the bigger Tokyo streets, but when one goes off the beaten track, into the slum districts, several can be met, especially at' the entrances to temples, where the pious worshipper fs sure to throw them afew coppers. Some time ago, the authorities announced the establishment of national leper home and hospital, but thus far nothing definite has. materialized,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.