PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TILIC.O.
885
20 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO |
8
Colony or Protectorate.
Year.
No. of New Cases of Leprosy recognised during the year,
Total No. of
Cases known to be present during the year.
No. of Deaths from Leprosy during the year.
Estimated Population.
Straits Settlements
...
1897
231
550
166
("Number of
580,563
new cases
1898
233
533
149
592,587
recognised" is a list of
1899
211
505
174
admissions and re-admis-
560,403
1900
191
448
126
sions to the Asylums).
567,178
1901
183
446
112
574,029
1902
181
451
96
581,219
1903
215
491
106
588,544
1904
212
598
178
595,782
1905
274
607
112
603,824
1906
223
624
153
611,790
1907
203
594
133
619,796
1908
206
595
118
628,016
1908
Under 300
1908
Nil
6
Nil
20,000
1905
3,781
1906
1907
1908
3,746 3,558
Fiji
Tonga
St. Helena
EG ER EN EN
3
• NOTE-A death from leprosy is recorded in 1901.
B.-Distribution of Cases-Most of the observations bearing on this question are recorded in the extracts printed at the end of this Report. To them, however, may be added that littoral distribution is reported from Gibraltar, Malta, Bahamas, and St. Lucia, and general distribution from Cyprus, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Southern Nigeria, East Africa Protectorate, Barbados, Bermuda, British Guiana, and Leeward Islands. It must, however, be remembered that many of the smaller Colonies are insular and that the whole population may be considered littoral. Cases are reported to be confined to natives in Southern Nigeria and to be found among all races without distinction in Cyprus, Barbados, and the Leeward Islands. Other notes on racial distribution will be found in the extracts.
C.-Notification of Cases.-The returns show that notification is not usually compulsory. It is enforced in Cyprus, Bechuanaland Protectorate, Swaziland, British Guiana, Grenada, British North Borneo, Ceylon, and Seychelles, and, for males only, in Malta.
D and E-Administrative action and segregation.-Disinfection is generally not required. It is carried out in Malta, Southern Nigeria, Bermuda, Trinidad, British North Borneo, and the Straits Settlements. In Swaziland and St. Kitts- Nevis huts are destroyed by burning.
Where there is a leper asylum, compulsory segregation is naturally effected by confining the patients to it; for example, in Cyprus, British Guiana, British North Borneo, and Ceylon.
A partial, but apparently a fairly high, degree of segregation is attained by legislation providing for the detention of lepers found in an indigent state, engaged in certain prohibited trades, or using public baths or other specified institutions. Ordinances of this character are found in Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad, the Straits Settlements, and Fiji. The following extract from the Straits Settlements' return will indicate the general character of such legislation:
The Governor in Council may by notification in the "Gazette" prohibit the carrying on by a leper of any of the following trades or callings: baker, butcher, cook, any trade in which the person employed handles or comes in contact with articles of food or drink, drugs, medicines, or tobacco in any form, washerman, tailor, any trade or calling in which the person employed manufactures, handles, or comes in contact with wearing apparel, barber or any other similar trade or calling in which the person employed comes in contact with other persons, domestic servant, nurse, jinrikisha puller, licensed hackney carriage driver, boatman on any boat licensed for the conveyance of passengers or cargo. Any leper so offending may be
9
committed to a leper asylum by a court of two magistrates until discharged by order of the Governor. Any leper who shall enter any hackney carriage, jinrikisha, or other public vehicle, or lodge in any hotel, boarding house, or lodging house, or bathe in any public bath, may on conviction before a magistrate be detained in a leper asylum until he is discharged by order of the Governor.
If it be proved to the satisfaction of a magistrate that any leper is not maintained in a state of isolation from the general public it shall be lawful for such magistrate by warrant under his hand and seal to order the deten- tion of such leper in a leper asylum until he is discharged by order of the Governor.
Illustration.-A leper who frequents the public streets, whether in a vehicle, on foot, or otherwise, will not be in a state of isolation.
When a leper is so arrested and committed to an asylum the municipal or governmental authorities, as the case may be, disinfect the house or room in which he had dwelt.
Lepers are allowed to live in their own houses as long as they obey the clauses of the Lepers Ordinance already quoted.
In Malta male lepers are segregated and the rule will shortly be extended to females. In Bermuda, where there is no asylum, segregation is effected in a small hut or outhouse. Grenada receives two pauper cases in the Poor Asylum. In Swaziland cases are isloated at their own kraals or a hospital. In Tonga lepers must be isolated by their relations.
In
Native systems of segregation appear to be widely spread in Africa. One method is described in the extract from the Gold Coast Report on page 12. Southern Nigeria lepers are segregated "in the hinterland at leper farms' outside several of the large towns voluntarily by the natives and under the control of the native chiefs." It is noted that "medical officers very rarely see leprosy." The East Africa Protectorate return states that "the Arabs would appear to practise a system of segregation of their own accord. They are shy of reporting cases and usually isolate their cases in the bush." There would also seem to be some voluntary segregation in Basutoland and the Bechuanaland Protectorate.
Deportation of persons domiciled outside the Colony may be resorted to in Bermuda and Gibraltar. Cases found in Hong Kong are deported to Canton.
Institutions.
No institution for leprosy exists or is under construction in Gibraltar, Gold Coast, Northern Nigeria, Basutoland, Bechuanaland Protectorate, Nyasaland, Swaziland, Uganda, Bermuda, or the Montserrat and Virgin Islands Presidencies of the Leeward Islands. A Government Refuge for Lepers is under construction in the East African Protectorate. At present the Government pays the Church Missionary Society hospital a capitation fee for retaining in segregation at Mzi- zima lepers found in the town of Mombasa. In Grenada two pauper cases have for some years been treated in the Poor Asylum. In St. Lucia lepers have usually been treated in the Yaws Asylum when they would consent to go there. At the beginning and end of 1908 there were three such patients. Fiji maintains a segre- gation station on part of the Island of Beqa, 18 miles from Suva, which of the nature of a hospital or asylum, but is more of a village settlement where is not the patients live in separate houses, three or four in each." erecting a stone cottage, with outbuildings, in an isolated district in which to St. Helena " is now segregate the leper child. to be guardian and caretaker. Should more cases of leprosy occur, additional The grandmother of the child has volunteered rooms could be built on to the original cottage as necessity demanded.”
LIST OF LEPER InstitutionS IN CROWN COLONIES AND PROTECTORATES.
No, of Patients at beginning of year 1908.
44
No. of Patients
at end of
Joar 1908.
Colony or Protectorate.
Name of Institution.
No. of Beds.
Cyprus
Malta
Leper Asylum, Nicosia Leper Asylum
115
95
98
72
71
65
Sierra Leone...
Kissy Incurable Hos- pital (Leper part).
Average num-
Average num-
ber 6.
13869
ber 6.
B
10
Colony or Protectorate.
Name of Institution.
No. of Beds,
No. of Patiente
year 1908,
at beginning of
No. of Patients
at end of
year 1908.
Southern Nigeria
Southern Rhodesia ...
Bahamas
Barbados British Guiana
British Honduras Jamaica
Leeward Islands
St. Vincent
Trinidad
British North Borneo
Ceylon
Hong Kong
Mauritius
Seychelles
Leper Asylum
Leper Asylum
Capuan Island
Hendela
Yuba Leper Asylum... Onitsha Asylum Morgenster Asylum... General Hospital (One male and one female ward set apart). The Lazaretto
24 (12 m., 12 f.)
21
16
(10 m, 11 f.)
29
(7 m., 9 f.)
27
Huts built as
required.
10
6 (April, 1909)
4
G
136 475
119 403
121
431
(334 m., 141 f.) | (285 m., 118 f.)
(306 m.,
125 f.)
Corozal Leper Hut
2
Nil.
Nil.
Leper Asylum
170
113
105
Rat Island, Antigua
Fort Charles Asylum
St. Kitts.
50 61
37
32
60
61
Pauper Asylum (Leper
part).
Kalmunai
St. Lazare
Round Island Leper
Asylam.
Accommodation
for 20.
(256 m., 109 f.)
39
382
30
See page 34. 200
Huts built
as required.
6 in 1908-9.
365
262
2 282 22 2
320
128
267
5 *** * *
325
129
Straits Settlements
Singapore Male and Female Leper Asy- Jums.
63
Male Leper Hospital
382
356
370
Jerejak Island, Pe- nang.
Female Leper Ward
17
13
15
Jelutong, Penang. Malacca Leper Asy-
6
Nil.
Nil.
lum.
Fiji
Beqa Leper Station ...
A verage 36.