The Bhau Daji treatment of leprosy / by Stanley Boyd.

  • Boyd, James Stanley Newton, 1856-1916.
Date:
[1893]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Bhau Daji treatment of leprosy / by Stanley Boyd. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Cask IV. Mis. Burrett, aged 18, born in Bombay of Irish parents. Disease of two years' standing. Came under treatment on June 26, 1BG8. She had swelling of the entire upper and lower extremities, with brown raised patches, swelling of and spots on the face, and swollen nose. Marked improvement occurred in a month : the swellings at the time of the report were entirely gone. Colonel Wilson reports: As regards Mrs. B. she was not cured, and is dead.* Of the following cases in natives I have no account other than the hasty pencil notes of the gentleman who gave me the name of the remedy. Cask XVIII.—The Rev. Vishnu Bhaskur Karmarkar, of the American Mission in Ahmednuggur, wrote a careful account of his own case in the Dhyanodaija of September 1, 1868, from which the following is an extract: He had been ill four or five years before coming under Bhau Daji's treatment on April 1, 1868. In two months I felt considerably better, and now, after four months, I am half cured. The shining of the skin of the whole body is gone. The swellings in different places have become less, and the veins of the hands, etc., which could not be made out before, are now seen distinctly. Most of the redness of the face is gone. The swelling of the ears still exists, but far, far less than what it was before. The hairs of the eyebrows, which had dropped off, have commenced to grow again. The feeling of improvement internally is even greater than the external improvement. The appetite is good, and the food is digested easily. I am in better spirits, and my strength is double what it was. Formerly, from ulceration in the interior of the nose, blood used to pass, and, not being able to breathe through the nose, the mouth had always to be kept open. From this, especially at night, the mouth used to be very dry, causing distress which has now gone. The ulceration in the nose still exists, but very slightly. The sense of smell, which was lost, is now mostly restored; the voice, which had acquired a nasal twang, is now clear. Cask XIX.—In the same paper this gentleman refers to the cases of certain other lepers under the same treatment whom he had watched, and with whom he had often spoken. Among them the following seems the most promising: Kus- tomjee Byramjee, compositor in the Times of India printing office, living at Chira Bazaar, aged 20. Had the disease during his sixteenth year. In the seventeenth year it increased considerably. Those doctors who treated him are ready to certify that he really has leprosy, and that their treatment did him no good. He had swellings in different places, the nostrils were much swollen, and there were reddish tubercles on the face and hands, neck and ears. In this state he came to Dr Bhau Daji The doctor was th n only giving a trial to his new remedy, and thought the young man was a good patient. He got him to agree to take the medicine a long time, and to strictly observe the diet and regimen. Six months after taking medicine the disease completely disappeared. He has ceased taking medicine for 2£ years, and he has not observed the same strict diet. No one would now believe that he had had leprosy, so clean and healthy does he look. Marked improvement is noted in all the cases mentioned. * Col. Wilson reports further (June 17, 1892) that Mrs. B. died of dysentery ; but that the disease was then far advanced owing, according to the statement of her husband, to persistent neglect of all treatment.