1969 06 05 RWR to Clem Dear leprosy thin transparent paper “copy”

Letterhead

Oregon State Board of Health

State office Building

1400 S.W. 5^th Avenue

Portland, Oregon 97201

June 5, 1969

Mr. Clem J. Dear

Bible Truth Publishers

239 Harrison Street

Oak Park, Illinois

Dear Mr. Dear:

It has been a long time since I last wrote you; I am not sure this letter should be addressed to you, but perhaps you can forward it to more appropriate persons.

In reviewing the three paragraphs on leprosy (p. 486) of Morris’s New and Concise Bible Dictionary, I find an inaccurate and incomplete description of leprosy.

The first sentence is the worst. The word “loathsome” is a descriptive and subjective impression and should not be used to describe an illness in a dictionary. An estimated fifteen million people in the world today are afflicted with leprosy. One of the most “loathsome” aspects of their illness to me is the manner in which they are treated by others. It seems particularly abhorrent to me to have Christians refer to this illness as “loathsome”.

Appropriate medicines have been successfully used to treat leprosy since 1943. Many patients have been cured. To refer to leprosy as an “incurable disease” today is a falsehood and only helps perpetuate imaginary and mythological fears of this illness and those who suffer from it.

There is no good reason to believe that Biblical “leprosy” is the same illness as the leprosy of which we speak today. The Hebrew word “tsaraath” is translated into Greek as “lepra”, which means a number of skin conditions such as boils, tuberculosis, smallpox, leukoderma, yaws, syphilis, and leprosy. The Levitical rules separating people with acutely infection illnesses “without the cap” was a most appropriate hygienic rule.

p. 2

The leprosy described as being on garments and houses does not describe the disease we now refer to as leprosy. The total lack of reference to the more pronounced symptoms of leprosy such as anesthesia (lack of sensation) and physical deformities are not described as part of Biblical disease and there are no recognizable early signs of the illness. Thus isolation is not as helpful as with other infections disease. Many cases of advanced leprosy become non-infective without medical treatment. These individuals are the ones because of their physical deformities have often been most abused throughout history.

If you should desire reading on this subject I would recommend Patrick Feeny’s short paperback The Fight Against Leprosy (1964) which can be obtained free of charge from American Leprosy Missions, Inc., 297 Park Avenue, South, New York, N.Y., 10016.

Perhaps a copy of this letter could be forwarded to the editor of the dictionary.

Thank you.

Sincerely yours,

Roger W. Rochat, MD

Medical epidemiologist

Epidemiology Section

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