CARING FOR ONE HUNDRED TWENTY IN INDIA Model showing the barracks at Ramachandrapuram, which cover three and a half acres. They consist of a church, medical room, three houses for men, and a house for women (at the left). in the Panama Canal Zone, or who have traveled through that region, are familiar with the fact that Central America and the entire west coast of South America Thus it can be readily seen to what perils a company of our soldiers in the Philippines would be exposed (if by chance an undiscovered leper were a cook). SEEKING TO CURE THE MOST HOPELESS DISEASE 857 Leprosy is usually found in one of three forms-anesthetic, nodular, or mixed. The anæsthetic or smooth form attacks the nerves and results in complete loss of sensation. In this form the fingers and toes sometimes die and drop off. The nodular or tubercular form is characterized by great lumps in the skin, which often develop into ulcers and cause terrible disfigurement of the features. The mixed form is the most usual and combines the features of both. There is also another form called "white leprosy", in which hair and skin become snow white, and which is a milder form of the disease. Experiments with the use of the X-ray have proved of some value in the treatment of the disease in the Philippines, the eruptions tending to heal with its repeated use. scent who visited the colony, shows this entry: "I first caught sight of the lepers when I went into the chapel for evening prayers. I could see them through the great glass wall which shuts off their apartment. I thought of them all night. Then this morning I helped one of the OUR EASTERN POSSESSIONS PRESENT A PROBLEM The Culion colony in the Philippines has cottages on a beautiful beach at the edge of the sea. One of the most modern and thoroughly equipped leper asylums in this country is maintained by the State of Massachusetts on Penikese Island, off New Bedford. Here, under the superintendency of Dr. and Mrs. Frank H. Parker, fourteen lepers are cared for. They represent seven nationalities, several coming from such distant points as the Barbados and the Cape Verde Islands. At Tracadie, New Brunswick, on the bleak and rugged coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, a heroic band of nuns devote their lives to ministering to a colony of suffering lepers. For five For five months of the year, the brave little colony is entirely isolated from the outside world. The gray stone building in which they are housed seems a part of the old ocean itself as it looms out of the mist of the Gulf. A leaf from the diary of Marie sisters make the beds for the lepers. Then we had breakfast. The bread is very hard and the fish very salty-I can hardly eat the food. At 8 o'clock tonight I went the rounds with two sisters dressing the sores of the lepers. The room is growing chilly. The wind is whistling around the eaves and the deep boom of the waves keeps pounding through the still night. How far I am from home!" Conditions that led to the formation of the Tracadie Colony seem to substantiate the "fish theory" of leprosy. Dr. L. Duncan Bulkley, who has made the matter the subject of extended investigations, reports: "For a great many years observers have claimed that in some way leprosy is conveyed through fish. In the light of modern knowledge concerning the conveyance of various diseases by means of lower animal life, the theory would seem to have fresh scientific support. I THE "SAND HOG" IN PASTURE TSETSE FLY WITH TWO-FOOT THE latest boats made especially for sucking up and carrying sand or gravel in large quantities have two long pipes at one end supported by derricks. These are the tubes through which the mechanism draws its material. It takes the "sand hog", as it is called, a whole day to fill up a full load consisting of nearly a thousand yards of sand. The sand and the water are drawn up by powerful pumps and the water is allowed to flow off, letting the sand remain, as shown in one of the illustrations. The upper picture shows how far down in the water the craft sinks when it has its complete load, which weighs more than three million three hundred thousand pounds. When loaded, these boats can navigate only in smooth water, as the slightest sea would send them to the bottom. THE WINGS HE War Department has received from the British Museum a giant model of the tsetse fly, the dreaded insect which carries the sleeping sickness that, in spite of European medical intervention, has destroyed, and is still destroying whole populations in Africa. This magnified fly has a wing-spread of about two feet. It was specially ordered by our Government for. purposes of study by the medical corps of the army. The sleeping sickness is today one of the most important problems confronting investigative science. There is fear lest it may arrive in the United States, or in some of our outlying possessions, at any time. No cure for it is known, and it invariably kills, the principal symptom being a torpor which steadily and in it rebuild but always the little worm succeeds in matching the stones. MOVE SEVENTY-FIVE-FOOT PALM FOR OR thirty years a giant palm tree has stood guard before the entrance of the old Southern Pacific railway station at Los Angeles. A new building has been built on the old site and popular sentiment demanded. that the tree be saved although the railway had determined to chop it down. The wrecking train used by the railroad was finally put to work and the big tree was hoisted aboard a flat car and sent to the Exposition grounds where it will remain the rest of its days. It was the second time it had been moved, as it originally took root beside the harbor twenty miles from the city. It was brought to its second home when that part of the country was part of a ranch. THE GREAT PALM THAT THE WRECKING CRANE SAVED WHEN THE WORM as BUILDING a structure of masonry as hard stone, the caddis worm hides effectively from fish which would find it a tempting morsel. The little larva has a soft body which is much appreciated by minnows and so, with astonishing skill, it gathers stones and matches them together, completing the whole with cement. The job is done under water and the cement holds firmly after a short time. Then it is almost as easy to crush the little building as it is to break it apart. Naturalists have watched the construction job by prodding the caddis from its home and making HANDIWORK OF THE CADDIS WORM The larva fits the stones together, working from the inside, and the finished prod uct is difficult to crush. |