SCARLET FEVER. Synonyms.—Scarlatina; Scarlet Rash. Definition ...

there were two thousand leproseries—hospitals for lepers.
“In England one hundred and ten leper-houses existed from the twelfth
to the sixteenth century.”
The twentieth century finds the disease intrenched in Norway, Egypt,
Syria, India, China, Japan, the West Indies, South America, the
Philippines, and the Sandwich Islands. Not a single country in Europe
is free from it, and in the United States there are more than five
hundred cases.
The importation of leprosy into the United States may be traced to
several distinct sources. Dr. Prince Morrow in “The Twentieth Century
Practice,” says:
“1. It was introduced into the Atlantic Coast cities and the countries
along the Atlantic seaboard from the West Indies, and probably Africa,
through the importation of slaves, and intercourse through travel and
trade with the neighboring West India Islands.
“2. By leprous immigrants from Norway and Sweden into the
Scandinavian colonies of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Dakota.
“3. By the Acadian refugees from the British Provinces of New
Brunswick into Louisiana.
“4. By lepers from Mexico into Texas and States bordering the Gulf of
Mexico and the Rio Grande.
“5. By Chinese immigrants into San Francisco and elsewhere on the
Pacific Coast.
“6. By Hawaiian lepers into California, Utah, and other parts of the
country.”
Etiology.—While all ages, conditions, and sexes are susceptible to the
disease, the period between twenty and thirty years of age is the most
liable to attack, and must be given as among the predisposing causes. It
is somewhat more common in men than in women, and while all classes
of society are susceptible, squalor and overcrowding, which give greater
exposure to contagion, favor the disease. Heredity has also undoubtedly
some influence.
The Eclectic Practice of Medicine - PART I - Infectious Diseases - Page 234