PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
3
Reference :-
TC.O. 885
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
20 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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This will be reverted to later on, but meanwhile the following statistics will embody my views, and show in a graphic manner my contentions :—
TABLE NO. 1.
Table showing number of Lepers in Leribe Diștrict.
Males.
Females.
હેકટ
Total.
74 56
35
On Register July, 1903
New cases added to August, 1906
Deaths since July, 1903
+
2
Total remaining on Register August, 1906
62
41
103
The population of the district is 85,000, and the number of lepers at present on the register would work out at slightly over 12 per 10,000. The increase in three years has been at the rate of a little over 47 per cent. I do not know how
this compares with other districts in Basutoland, as the figures for them are not available at the time of writing.
In 1895 the total number of lepers in the whole of Basutoland was 148, which gave about 7 per 10,000 of the population as affected.
As regards sex, it will be noticed that the disproportion between them is not great--six men to four women. to one-third women.
The usual proportion is given as two-thirds men
TABLE NO. 2,
Table showing the form of Leprosy.
Anesthetic leprosy
Tubercular leprosy Mixed leprosy
71
29 9
109
The number showing the anesthetic form is larger than usual. This may account for the small number of deaths, 8 per cent. in three years.
5 to 10 years
10 to 15
15 to 20
20 to 25
Age.
TABLE NO. 3.
Showing Age Incidence.
Mals.
5
Females.
Total.
5
5
13
99
2
5
7
19
25 to 30
13
17
"
30 to 35
15
10
25
21
35 to 40
7
8
27
40 to 45
9
II
"
G
11
11
50 to 55
55 to 60
""
45 to 50
60 to 65
This explains itself and requires no comment.
Table showing how Leprosy was acquired.
TABLE NO. 4.
Both parents lepers
One parent leper
Blood relations, other than parents
History of contact with other lepers
No history of heredity or contact ...
อง
7
27
39
17
19
109
15
This is a most interesting table. Out of 109 cases, only 19, or 17 per cent., could not explain how they got the disease. The exponents of heredity might say that this table upholds their theory, as nearly seven per cent. had both parents leprotic, 26 per cent. had one parent, and 35 per cent, had blood relations affected. I do not think that heredity has much to do with it, as too many members of a family escape.
Hutchinson states that it is rare for a husband and wife to be both affected. Amongst the cases in this register, I have noted eight instances where both were affected, which works out at about seven per cent. of the total.
TABLE NO. 5.
Showing number of Immigrants and of those who had worked for varying periods outside Basutoland.
Male.
Female.
Immigrants
...
1
5
Residents of Basutoland, who had worked beyond
22
the Territory mostly in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony.
It will be seen from this table that about eight per cent. were immigrants. In every case they had contracted the disease after coming to Basutoland. Of the number, two were Zulus, five were Basuto (four from Orange River Colony and one from the Transvaal), one Bastard from Cape Colony, and one Baralong from the Orange River Colony. Only about 25 per cent. ever worked or resided outside Basutoland.
As regards eating fish, I find that 72 denied ever eating fish and 37 acknow- ledged having eaten fresh fish or sardines. The 72 were most emphatic and their statement is to be believed, as the natives of the territory are, as a rule, not given to fish eating Very few eat river fish, they are too troublesome to catch; but when eaten they are fresh. Of the 37, most of them had eaten sardines--they do not habitually eat them, but occasionally as a luxury. The whites in Basutoland also eat sardines in considerable quantities and there is no leprosy amongst them.
As regards salt fish, it is and has been unknown in the country. The Boers in the Orange River Colony do not import or eat salt fish, and I have it on good authority that the trek Boers, who first colonized the country, did not bring salt fish with them and did not import it after they had settled down, hence they could not have fed their servants on it. The conditions were all against fish, and the country they traversed and occupied swarmed with game of all kinds up to within recent years. Being a pastoral people, as also are the Basuto, their herds sufficed for food.
I have enquired of all natives who have worked on the mines and they never heard of or saw salt fish there.
All the authorities I have consulted are uncertain as to how the disease pro- pagates itself. Most of them favour contagion, and certainly what evidence I have been able to get from the lepers in the district goes to prove this.
Before, however, I cite cases in proof, I should like to show how the disease spread from the Platberg to Basutoland. I have already pointed out how certain Basuto, who were living with the Bastards and Hottentots there, came to Basuto- land about 1842. In one instance, a man named Ramatlapeng and his family, who were lepers, were driven to Berea, the district of Basutoland opposite the Platberg. There were nine lepers amongst them, and from them the disease spread northwards to Peka, where five of the present cases can be traced to them, to Leribe where six cases originated from them, and to Joel's and Letsika's where, in all, over 20 cases are due to them.
In another instance, a leper Zulu doctor infected a family, and, subsequently, many people living in a village at Sebetoane. Five survive now, and to my know ledge about a dozen have died within the last ten years.
Another man also came from Modderpoort to a place near Peka, and from him can be traced nine cases.
Time will not permit me to go into this more fully, but enough, I think, has been brought forward to prove my contention.
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