Page:Tropical Diseases.djvu/694

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
648
LEPROSY
[CHAP

fresh eruptions, and also causing bacilli to appear in the blood.

Radcliffe Crocker recorded several cases of leprosy in which great improvement followed weekly hypodermic injections of 1/5 gr. of perchloride of mercury.

Iodide of potassium aggravates leprosy if given in full doses; it not only affects the general health prejudicially, but it causes fresh eruptions to appear.

Danielssen regards salicylate of soda, combined with cod-liver oil, quinine and iron, good food, and good hygiene, as the best treatment for leprosy. He claims for the salicylate, if commenced within the first few months from the appearance of the disease, that it sometimes effects a cure. He begins with 15 gr. four times a day, and gradually increases the dose during six months or a year.

I have tried thyroidin in a case of nerve leprosy. The patient is now absolutely free from symptoms.

Salvarsan administered at frequent intervals intravenously and combined with anti-leprol is said to have given favourable results in nodular but not in anæsthetic cases.

Hydroxylamin, europhen, naphthol, salol, methylene blue, and aristol have also been tried recently; the results have not proved encouraging.

It has been proposed to treat leprosy by inoculations of the erysipelas streptococcus, or by injections of the filtered toxin obtained from cultures of that organism (Impey).

Nerve-stretching, with or without nerve-splitting, has been strongly advocated (McLeod) for the cure of leprous neuralgia, anæsthesia, muscular atrophy, and other trophic lesions. At the best they can benefit the local lesion alone, and that but temporarily, and only in the earlier stages of the leprous neuritis before the nerve has undergone fibrous transformation.

In the case of leprous nodules spreading on to the cornea and threatening to interfere with the line of vision, Brockmann has shown that the extension of the leproma may be arrested by division of the