Abstract
ACCORDING to a paper on this subject by Dr. G. W. McCoy, medical director (retired) of the United States Public Health Service (Public Health Rep., Dec. 18), leprosy tends to disappear from many parts of the world, while in other parts it tends to spread freely. At the present time in Europe the disease spreads apparently only in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean and the Baltic. As regards the United States, in Louisiana, Florida and Texas the presence of imported cases from the British West Indies, Dutch Guiana, South America, China and Chile, has resulted in the establishment of foci in which the disease shows a strong tendency to perpetuate itself, while in the central north-western States, such as Minnesota, leprosy has shown little tendency to become established. In other parts of the United States the disease is so rare as to be practically negligible from the public health aspect. Dr. McCoy concludes that in an age in which great social and economic changes are occurring, it is impossible to predict what effect they may have on leprosy or other diseases.
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Epidemiology of Leprosy. Nature 151, 695 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/151695c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/151695c0