CHAPTER 11: LEPROSY AND THE ABORIGINAL RACES.
IN 1889, during a visit up the river Essequebo, in British Guiana, the British Commissioner and resident Magistrate, Mr. Michael M’Turk, of Kalacoon, informed me that he had not the slightest doubt that leprosy was disseminated with the vaccine virus. He was intimately acquainted with a healthy family, in which one of the children was affected with leprosy by means of lymph taken from a child afterwards proved to be tainted with leprosy. The unfortunate victim of the state-enforced operation was isolated in a small building at the end of the garden at the parents’ house, and ultimately succumbed to the disease. As an explorer, Mr. M’Turk has been much among the Indians, all his servants and boatman belonging to that race, and he had never known or heard of a case of leprosy amongst them. The truth of this statement is confirmed by a communication to me from Mr. Herman Klein, Acting Assistant Medical Officer, H. M. P. 5., Potosi, British Guiana, dated June, 1891—" I have been about eleven years up the Essequebo, river, and have never seen an Indian afflicted with leprosy." I received similar testimony at Bartica Grove from Mr. John Bracey, an Indian trader of twenty-nine years’ experience among the Macousi and Wapisiana tribes. Dr. John D. Hillis, F.R.C.S., formerly the Superintendent General of the Leper Asylum, Mahaica, in his work, entitled "Leprosy in British Guiana" (1881), says, p. 148:— "With regard to this country one important fact is the immunity from leprosy enjoyed by the aboriginal tribes of British Guiana." This immunity from the disease is attributed to the circumstance that no Indian will allow himself or his children to be vaccinated. Dr. T. C. Taché, Titulary Professor to the Laval University, writing from Ottawa, Canada, in reply to questions snbmitted by the Hawaiian Government, June, 1885, says:— "There never was any case of leprosy among the Indians, although one of their principal villages is located in the endemic section, being contiguous to the parish of Nigavrick." Professor T. C. White says that in Tracadie, New Brunswick, more than too lepers were received at the hospital between 1849 and 1882; nearly all the cases were of French descent, and no Indian had fallen a victim.
Dr. J. E. Graham, in a report from the Government of Hawaii as to leprosy in New Brunswick (1886, pp. 114 and 140), observes :—" That the Indians have been the only race, of those inhabiting these localities in any number, which have remained so far exempt from leprosy. . . . The places in which the Indians dwell bear precisely the same character as those inhabited by their neighbours among whom the ailment has exercised its ravages."
Dr. Miguel Valladores, physician to the Lazaretto, Guatemala, says, in his report to the Hawaiian Government, 1886, p. 174, "that it is almost an unheard of thing for an Indian to be afflicted with leprosy."
Drs. Vlagthoes and Mayrinck state that, previous to the discovery of Brazil, leprosy was unknown among the. Indians.
Dr. Alzevedo Lima, in a letter on "The Leper Hospital of Rio de Janeiro," dated June 1st, 1891, Rio de Janeiro, says :—" On consulting all the documents and books written by travellers and missionaries in Brazil, we find no mention, either direct or indirect, of any prevalent complaint among the Indians which might be attributed to leprosy. Even nowadays those who live a savage life away from all contact with civilised society are not attacked by this disease, while those who have left their woods for peopled centres, together with their descendants, are, according to observations, occasional victims."— journal of the Leprosy Investigation Committee, December, 1891, p22.
In a communication to me, dated Rio de Janeiro, May 20th, 1892, Dr. Lima says :—" Now, about the Indian races, those who live away altogether, without any interference or intercourse with civilisation, their freedom from leprosy can be explained not only by the absence of the Jennerian vaccination, but also by the non-intercourse with people capable of being the conductors of the germs of the disease." I have personally met with races of Indians in South America, amongst whom, though living amongst lepers up to this date, no cases of leprosy have occurred. This immunity is attributed by old residents, one a physician, to the circumstance that they will not allow themselves or their families to be vaccinated.
Dr. J. Z. Currie, secretary of the Provincial Board of Health, Fredericton, New Brunswick, in reply to a communication from me, dated January 2, 1892, as to the vaccination of Indians in New Brunswick, Canada, says :—" There has been no outbreak of small-pox among the Indians for some time. However, in almost all instances they object to vaccination. Four cases of small-pox occurred in this Province during the past year among white people."
The main object of this evidence is to show that in countries where leprosy is endemic, the Indian tribes who reject vaccination escape the plague. In New Brunswick it would appear that they also escaped smallpox, while vaccinated white persons have been attacked with the disease.