Volume 2

Handbook of geographical and historical pathology / by August Hirsch ; translated from the second German edition by Charles Creighton.

  • Hirsch, August, 1817-1894.
Date:
1883-1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Handbook of geographical and historical pathology / by August Hirsch ; translated from the second German edition by Charles Creighton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    for tlie Gold Coast,1 for the Benin Districts (Lagos)? for the Niqers country, and for the Gaboon (Cameroon Districts).4’ It may be inferred from the statement of Daniell5 that leprosy occurs in these countries not merely on tho coast, but as an endemic also in the interior; according to him leprous per- sons are not unfrequently found among the slaves brought from the Soudan to the West Coast. On the Loango Coast (from Cape Lopez southwards) we come upon a territory free from leprosy •? but the very defective medical information from these parts does not enable us to decide how far this immunity pertains to the most southern districts of the West Coast, to Angola, and the region of the Congo. It is certain that leprosy is endemic to a very considerable extent at the Cape? the fruitful districts on the cast side forming an exception (Kretzsclimar) ; Natals also is said to be free from the disease. At the Cape there were in 1858 two leper asylums, or places of deten- tion for lepers, the one being “ Hemel-en-Aarde ” (heaven and earth), a solitary place shut in by the mountains, distant a few days’ journey from Cape Town and the coast; the other, Robben Island in Table Bay, thirty miles from the Herrnhut colony of Gnadenthal. According to the missionary Merensky,9 an endemic centre of leprosy has sprung up since 1850 among the Zulus who had migrated into Natal. Besides Africa, the continent of Asia with the archipelagos adjoining it forms one of the headquarters of leprosy at the present day. This applies mostly to India and the eastern parts of Asia. On the other hand, in the countries of 1 Clarke, ‘Transact, of the Epidemiol. Soc.,’ i860, i, 106; Moriarty, ‘Med. Times and Gaz.,’ 1866, Dec., 663. 2 ‘ Statist. Rep. of the Health of the Navy for 1864.’ 3 Oldfield, ‘London Med. and Surg. Journ.,’ 1833, Nov., 403; McRitchie, ‘Monthly Jonrn. of Med. Sc.,’ 1832, May. 4 Ballay, ‘ L’Ogooue, Afrique equatoriale occidentale,’ Paris, 1880, 40. 5 Daniell, ‘ Sketches of the med. topogr. ... of the Gulf of Guinea,’ Lond., 1849, 56- 6 Ealkenstein, in ‘Virchow’s Arch.,’ 1877, Ixxi, 421. 7 Berncastle, ‘Lancet,’ 1831, Sept., 237; Kretzsclimar, ‘ Siidafrikanisclie Skizzen.,’ Leipz., 1833; Black, ‘ Edinb. Med. and Surg. Journ.,’ 1853, April, 237 ; Scherzer, ‘ Ztschr. del- Wiener Aerzte,’ 1838, Nr. 11 ; Ref. in ‘Lancet,’ 1876, July, 32 ; Fritsch, in ‘ Virchow’s Arch.,’ 1863, xxxiii, 160 and * Arch, fur Anat. und Physiol.,’ 1866, 733. 8 ‘ Report on Leprosy,’ xi. 9 In ‘ Virchow’s Archiv,’ lxxxix (1882), p. 187.