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| Id: | 16339
| | Author: | Courtney, Kenneth O. | | Title: | Leprosy in Panama: a study of its origin and spread.
| | Source: | Int. J. Lepr;7(1):29-40, Jan.-Mar. 1939. ilus, mapas, tab.
| | Abstract: | No record has been found of leprosy among the natives of Panama prior to the founding of the first Spanish settlement, Nombre de Dios, in 1509. Leprosy was introduced principally by the Spanish conquistadores, merchants and settlers, some of whom came directly from the Old World while others came by way of Colombia and Peru; and it has been maintained mostly by their descendants and direct familial contacts. In the majority of cases, the spread of leprosy in Panama has been along the routes of territorial invasion and of commercial travel. From 15 leprous West Indian negro laborers who came to Panama from the French and British colonies in the Caribbean Sea, there have developed nine secondary cases among descendants or contacts in a period of approximately 35 years. Among the 109 patients hospitalized in the Palo Seco Leper Colony, it was possible to obtain from 74 percent definite histories of contact with preexisting cases of leprosy. Of the new cases found in the provinces, those already hospitalized and whose families were visited in the provinces, and those studied in church or other records, -the total of these being approximately 116 - histories of prior contact with leprosy was established for all save one. At the present time residual endemic foci of leprosy in the Republic of Panama are the towns and villages of Las Tablas, Los Santos, Chepo, Taboga, Bocas del Toro, and probably Marica and Las Delicias. Leprosy, in Panama, appears to be a familial disease, which the writer interprets not as an example of biologic inheritance of the bacterial invasion but as evidence of inherited predisposition to leprosy, coupled with prolonged intimate contact with the disease. (AU).
| | Descriptors: | HANSENIASE
HANSENIASE/etnol
HANSENIASE/epidemiol
HANSENIASE/transm
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| | Electronic Medium: | http://www.ilsl.br
| | Location: | BR191.1 |
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