Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/265

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239
EURASIAN

that place, and found the following proportions affected with filaria; of whites, 1 in 26; of blacks, 1 in 10¼; of the mixed race, 1 in 9. Doctor Laville *[1] states that, in the Society Islands, out of a total of 13 European and American residents, 11 were affected with elephantiasis. Taking all these facts into consideration, together with our knowledge of the pathology of the disease, I do not think we are justified in saying that the black races are more susceptible to the disease than white people. On the other hand, owing to the nature of their habits, they are much more liable to the diseases than are the white races." During the five years 1893-97, ninety-eight Eurasians suffering from filarial diseases were admitted into the General Hospital, Madras.

To Colonel W. A. Lee, I. M.S., Superintendent of the Government Leper Asylum, Madras, I am indebted for the following note on leprosy in its relation to the Eurasian and European communities. " Europeans are by no means immune to the disease, which, in the majority of instances, is contracted by them through coitus with leprous individuals. Leprosy is one of the endemic diseases of tropical and sub-tropical countries, to the risk of contracting which Europeans who settle on the plains of India, and their offspring from unions with the inhabitants of the land, as well as the descendants of the latter, become exposed, since, by the force of circumstances, they are thrown into intimate contact with the Native population. The Eurasian community furnishes a considerable number of lepers, and the disease, once introduced into a family, has a tendency to attack several of its members, and to reappear in successive generations, occasionally skipping one — a

  1. • Endemic Skin and other Diseases of India. Fox and Farquhar,