Good Talk

There are certain things one does not talk about at the luncheon table. A detailed description of personal diseases, for instance, however arresting the symptoms, rarely furnishes appetizing aliment for conversation; revelations of exotic fissures or cavities in the teeth (illustrated) often fail to elicit applause; while a discussion of loathsome and fatal afflictions of the skin, together with an account of the sufferer's pangs and an outline of the methods used to relieve same constitutes a type of data even less acceptable to the fastidious.

Nevertheless, at a luncheon of notable physicians in Manhattan last week, the company focused its interest upon leprosy. William H. P. Anderson, General Secretary of the American mission to lepers, spoke of the developments in treatment, hinted that in a few years leprosy would be "as rare as yellow fever." Said he:

"The basis of the treatment for lepers that is bringing the most encouraging results is the ethylesters of chaulmoogra oil. The treatment varies in different countries, but the general results are most helpful."

Dr. James W. McKane, veteran missionary physician from Siam; Dr. H. C. de Souza-Arujo, Brazilian leper specialist; Dr. George W. McCoy, director of the Hygienic Laboratories at Washington, also addressed the demi-tasses. Their discourse was authoritative, technical, optimistic. They knew that their fellow guests, gentlemen who like them had ministered in dim jungles and remote frontiers to living bodies half liquified by ghastly corruption, were not easily put off their diet by good meat, good talk.