(C.S.O. 2/4756/30).
Page
HONG KONG.
No. 1995
1
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON LEPERS.
1. We were appointed to enquire into the incidence of leprosy in the Colony and to suggest methods for dealing with lepers found in the Colony.
2. We were fortunate in being able to profit at one of our meetings by the presence of Professor Dr. Bernhard Nocht, late Director of the Hamburg Institute of Tropical Diseases and President of the 1930 International Commission on Leprosy, and of Dr. J. L. Maxwell of the Lester Institute Shanghai, Medical Secretary (for China) to the Mission to Lepers, who happened to be in the Colony at the time.
3. As regards the local incidence of the disease we are conscious that any estimate must be almost purely conjectural, but from an examination of the figures available from neighbouring countries and of the Gaol statistics we conclude that there are probably at present somewhere between 800 and 1000 lepers in the Colony.
4. Leprosy is not one of the "epidemic, endemic, contagious or infectious" diseases dealt with under the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance No. 1 of 1903.
5. On the other hand the Lepers Ordinance No. 24 of 1910 indicates the belief held at the time of its introduction that leprosy is a dreaded infectious disease, the victims of which should be removed from all intercourse with the rest of the in- habitants. The Attorney General of that day in introducing the Bill said: "The object of this Bill is to check the spread of leprosy in the Colony by providing for the segregation and treatment of lepers"
6. We are advised that leprosy is not a hereditary disease; that it is probably communicable especially at an early age by long and close association; that it is not commonly communicable from husband to wife or vice versa; that workers in leper settlements may safely mix with lepers without any special precautions; and that deliberate experiments to infect clean persons by injection of bacilli have not succeeded.
7. Modern methods of treatment may cure the disease if taken at an early stage and may mitigate its violence at all stages. Segregation is not an essential condition at either stage.
8. With the above in view it might seem attractive simply to recommend the complete repeal of Ordinance No. 24 of 1910 and to allow leprosy to take its chance like tuberculosis, the infectivity of which is much greater.
9. But the revolting nature of the disease in its advanced stages and the horror with which it is commonly regarded seem to us to call for some special legislation alike for the protection of the public from distressing spectacles and still more for the amelioration of the leper's own unhappy lot.
10. Under the existing law every person is either a leper or not a leper. If he or she is a leper then the full vigour of the Ordinance theoretically makes itself felt. No treatment by a private practitioner or as an out-patient at a hospital is permis- sible however slight the symptoms. The Police must be at once notified and the unhappy victim expelled from the Colony or segregated.