?332 REPORT OF THE LEPROSY COMMISSION:
well-ventilated houses, to eat only fresh and nourishing food, to
engage in gardening or other healthy outdoor occupation as
far as their crippled state would permit, and to observe the
greatest care with reference to drainage and sewage dispo-
sal, there is no doubt but that their disease would run a much
milder course. For this reason, apart from any question of
segregation on other grounds, the establishment of voluntary
asylums under careful supervision throughout India would do
much to lessen the sufferings of the leper, for in them he
would be taken away from his usual insanitary surroundings.
The difference between the condition of the lepers exa-
mined by the Commission in well-organised asylums, and that
of outcasts, in many cases without home or friends, collected
by the civil authorities, was sufficiently striking.
Medicinal.
Many drugs have been used in the treatment of leprosy
and widely different opinions have been expressed as to their
utility. The many secret remedies employed from time to
time may be at once dismissed, for they cannot concern a
scientific inquiry. Nor would space permit a dissertation on
all the known medicines which have been given for leprosy.
Only those will be discussed which have attracted attention,
or which have appeared to be of some value.
The oils of India may be conveniently considered in the
first place. Dr. George Watt1 mentions the following oils as
having been used in the treatment of leprosy-
1. Albizzia Lebbek.
2. Anacardium occidentale.
3. Cynometra ramiflora.
4. Dipterocarpus turbinatus.
5. Gynocardia odorata.
6. Hydnocarpus Wightiana.
7. Hydnocarpus venenata.
8. Pongamia glabra.
9. Psoralea corylifolia.
10. Semecarpus Anacardium.
(1) Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, Vol. IV, page 309; Vol. V,
Part I, pages 462 and 463; Vol. V, Part II, page 354.