m it is said to last from eighteen to twenty years
and is thus not so rapidly fatal as the tubercular variety.

[INFECTIOUS DISEASES 241]

Treatment.--The main treatment is the isolation and segregation of all
lepers from contact with the well; wholesome laws are enforced in some
countries where leprosy prevails, and provision is made not only for the
isolation and segregation, but also for their care. On account of its
relative variety America has not yet awakened and legislation only forbids
the entry of infected persons. At Molokai, in the Hawaiian Islands,
provision is made for the care of lepers. Many of the public hospitals for
the care of the sick poor refuse to receive lepers. The child of a leprous
woman should be removed from the mother after birth and not nursed by
another woman. No medicines are known to have any curative effect. An
immediate change of residence and climate should be made if the patient
happens to live in a district where the disease prevails. A highly
nutritious diet should be taken.

The outlook.--The future is in general dark for the leper. It is often of
a malignant character, and a fatal result is the rule. A change of climate
and conditions may help. Scandinavian lepers who have removed to the
United States have been greatly benefited by the change, but there is no
known cure. The isolation should be as effective as that for tuberculosis.
It is not contagious but infectious.

HYDROPHOBIA.--Rabies and hydrophobia are two different terms, meaning the
same disease, the former meaning to rage or become mad. This term applies
more especially to the disease as it exists in the maniacal form in the
lower animals, while hydrophobia comes from the Greek, meaning "dread of
water." As we occasionally find this dread of water only in the human
subject, the term is properly used in such a case. The lower animals
frequently attempt to drink water even though the act brings on a
spasmodic contraction of the swallowing (deglutitory) muscles. Hydrophobia
is an acute infectious disease communicated to man by the bite of an
animal suffering from rabies. It is due to a definite specific virus which
is transmitted through the saliva by the bite of a rabid animal. Its
natural habitat (location) is the nervous system, and it does not retain
its virulence when introduced into any other system of organs. It is
essentially a nervous disease and transmitted by the saliva of rabid
animals. When inoculated