New volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica > Volume 30, K-MOR

L E P S I U S
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has a wide distribution. It is found in nearly all parts
of South and Central America, and in certain parts of
North America—namely, Louisiana, California (among
Chinese), Minnesota, Wisconsin and Dakota (Norwegians),
New Brunswick (French Canadians).
It is difficult to find any explanation of the geo¬
graphical distribution and behaviour of leprosy. It seems
to affect islands and the sea-coast more than the interior,
and to some extent this gives colour to the old belief that
it is caused or fostered by a fish diet, which has been
revived by Mr Hutchinson, but is not generally accepted.
Leprosy is found in interiors where fish is not an article
of diet. Climate, again, has obviously little, if any,
influence. The theory of heredity is equally at fault,
whether it be applied to account for the spread of the
disease by transmission or for its disappearance by the
elimination of susceptible persons. The latter is the manner
in which heredity might be expected to act, if at all, for
lepers are remarkably sterile. But we see it persisting
among the Eastern races, who have been continuously
exposed to its selective influence from the earliest times,
while it has disappeared among the Europeans, who were
affected very much later. The opposite theory of hereditary
transmission from parents to offspring is also at variance
with many observed facts. Leprosy is very rarely con¬
genital, and no cases have occurred among the descendants
to the third generation of 160 Norwegian lepers settled
in the United States. Again, if hereditary transmission
were an effective influence, the disease could hardly have
died down so rapidly as it did in Europe in the 15th
century. Then we have the theory of contagion. There
is no doubt that human beings are inoculable with leprosy,
and that the disease may be communicated by close
contact. Cases have been recorded which prove it con¬
clusively ; for instance, that of a man who had never been
out of the British islands, but developed leprosy after shar¬
ing for a time the bed and clothes of his brother, who had
contracted the disease in the West Indies. Other single
cases of communication from person to person have been
established; and on a larger scale, the spread of the
disease when introduced into countries by immigrants has
been already noted. But a great number of observations
go to show that the contagiousness of leprosy is very
slight and quite personal. It seems, at any rate, in¬
sufficient to account for the rapid increase which has
taken place in the Sandwich Islands in spite of the
segregation. This case and some of the other facts noted,
such as the extensive dissemination of the disease in
Europe during the Middle Ages, and its subsequent rapid
decline, suggest the existence of some unknown epidemic
factor. Poverty and insanitation are said to go with the
prevalence of leprosy, but they go with every malady, and
there is nothing to show that they have any special
influence. Vaccination has been blamed for spreading it,
and a few cases of communication by arm-to-arm inocula¬
tion are recorded. The influence of this factor, however,
can only be trifling. Vaccination is a new thing, leprosy
a very old one; where there is most vaccination there
is no leprosy, and where there is most leprosy there is
little or no vaccination. In India 78 per cent, of the
lepers are unvaccinated, and in Canton since vaccination
was introduced leprosy has declined (Cantlie). On the
whole we must conclude that there is still much to be
learnt about the conditions which govern the prevalence
of leprosy.
With regard to prevention, the isolation of patients is
obviously desirable, especially in the later stages, when
open sores may disseminate the bacilli; but complete
segregation, which has been urged, is regarded as im¬
practicable by those who have had most experience in
leprous districts. Scrupulous cleanliness should be
exercised by persons attending on lepers or brought into
close contact with them. In treatment the most essential
thing is general care of the health, with good food and
clothing. The tendency of modern therapeutics to attach,
increasing importance to nutrition in various morbid states,
and notably in diseases of degeneration, such as tuber¬
culosis and affections of the nervous system, is borne out
by experience in leprosy, which has affinities to both; and
this suggests the application to it of modern methods for
improving local as well as general nutrition by physical
means. A large number of internal remedies have been
tried with varying results; those most recommended are
chaulmoogra oil, arsenic, salicylate of soda, salol, and
chlorate of potash. In the later stages of the disease
there is a wide field for surgery, which is able to give
much relief to sufferers.
Lepsius, Carl Richard (1810-1884), Egypto¬
logist, was born at Naumburg-am-Saale, 23rd December
1810, and in 1823 was sent to the “ Schulpforte ” school
near Naumburg, where he came under the influence of
Professor Lange. In 1829 he entered the University of
Leipzig, and one year later that of Gottingen, where,
under the influence of Otfried Muller, he finally decided
to devote himself to the archaeological side of philology.
From Gottingen he went to Berlin in 1832, where he
graduated as doctor with the thesis De tabulis Euguhinis.
In the same year he proceeded to study in Paris, and was
commissioned by the due de Luynes to collect material
from the Greek and Latin writers for his work on the
weapons of the ancients. In 1834 he took the Volney
prize with his Paldographie ah Mittel der Sprachfor-
schung. Befriended by Bunsen and Humboldt, Lepsius
threw himself with great ardour into Egyptological
studies, and in 1835 presented to the Berlin Academy
two dissertations on the Egyptian alphabet and numerals.
Having greatly advanced his knowledge of hieroglyphics,
he proceeded to Turin at the end of 1835. Here his
meditative studies laid the foundation for his future
splendid edition of the Book of the Dead (1842). It was
by his advice that the Drovetti collection at Livorno was
afterwards acquired for the Berlin Museum. In May
1836 he went to Borne, where Bunsen, who was engaged
on his great work AegypterCs Stelle in der Weltgeschichte,
had his collaboration. In 1837 Lepsius addressed a re¬
markable letter to Bosellini on the hieroglyphic alphabet,
and in the following year left Borne to study the Egyptian
collections at Leyden and to visit England. He then
returned to Germany, where Humboldt and Bunsen united
their influence to make his projected visit to Egypt a
scientific expedition with royal support. A prolonged
stay at Memphis gave Lepsius the opportunity of deep
researches into early Egyptian history and chronology.
At the end of 1845 he returned home, and the results of the
expedition, consisting of some 1500 specimens and casts, far
surpassed expectations. On 5th July 1846 he married
Elisabeth Klein, and his appointment to a professorship in
the Berlin University in the following August afforded
him the leisure necessary for the completion of his work.
In 1856 the twelve volumes of his vast Denkmdler aus
Aegypten und Aethiopien were finished ; they comprise the
entire archaeological, palaeographical, and historical results
of the Egyptian expedition, and their wrealth of lithographed
inscriptions renders them an indispensable corpus for the
study of Egyptology. In the same year Lepsius detected
the forgery of the lost work of Stephanus of Byzantium,
AlyvTTTcwv /SacnXecDV avaypac^Mv /3if3\oL rpeh, which
Simonides attempted to palm off upon the Berlin Academy
for 2500 thalers. The next subject that engaged his