Report on the prevalence & characters of leprosy in the Bombay Presidency, India, based on the official returns of 1867 / by Henry Vandyke Carter.

  • Carter, H. V. (Henry Vandyke), 1831-1897.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the prevalence & characters of leprosy in the Bombay Presidency, India, based on the official returns of 1867 / by Henry Vandyke Carter. 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.

    6/190 (page 2)
    That the District Tleturns under {h) and (c) may not, how- ever^ remain wholly unnoticed, a brief account of their con- tents will also be submitted. The Appendix contains details respecting the several Districts themselves ; and, in addition, a short description of the Castes to which Lepers belong. At the present day only one affection is understood by the term “ Leprosy^’—(or ^^True” Leprosy or “Black” Leprosy—the Elephantiasis of Greek physicians, the Lepra of the Arabians); this has its various forms, stages, and symptoms, which are often popularly distinguished by separate, names; but in general its characters are sufficiently clear to allow of ready detection. In the ordinary vernaculars of Western India, it is termed Eakta-piti Y^fqrfl: Ja^am |*lis the common Arabic name, and there is a long list of synonyms in Eastern tongues. What is known in English as “ White Leprosy” is called Kod, ^T^, and that almost everywhere; it is a complaint of infi- nitely less severity than the above, with which indeed it has hardly any thing in common; and it is striking to the eye only because of the singular contrast of its white patches with a dark skin. These are the only two affections referred to in the Returns under notice. A strictly medical description of true Leprosy may be seen in the Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Bom- bay, New Series, Vol. VIII., 1862 : this and the present Memoir, together, furnish a tolerably complete account of the disease as it exists in the Bombay Presidency of India.