Clinical study of lepromatous leprosy in Costa Rica.

Although knowledge of the symptomatology of leprosy is very complete, we believe it of interest to describe the clinical picture presented by lepromatous leprosy in Costa Rica, with respect to the characteristics of its cutaneous and visceral manifestations. At the outset it is to be said that the 177 cases of leprosy seen in Costa Rica from 1945 to the end of 1947 were classified as follows: lepromatous, 125 (70.6 %); undifferentiated, 33 (18.6 %) ; tuberculoid, 19 (10.8 % ). The undifferentiated and tuberculoid cases, the symptoms of which have been described in detail by South American writers, will not be discussed here . . Suffice it to say that, of the undifferentiated group, 10 were positive and 23 negative for the Hansen bacillus, and that several of the positive ones turned lepromatous while one of the negatives became reactional tuberculoid. We will confine ourselves in this paper to a description of the cutaneous and visceral manifestations of the lepromatous form, leaving its nerve trunk lesions for future discussions. The 125 lepromatous cases are grouped as follows: