Drugs can stop the disease progressing, but they cannot reverse disability.
….
The Leprosy Mission team has cured more than 1,600 cases
Cured, eh? Or halted?
Drugs can stop the disease progressing, but they cannot reverse disability.
….
The Leprosy Mission team has cured more than 1,600 cases
Cured, eh? Or halted?
Killing the bacterium with drugs, cannot reverse the nerve destruction accomplished beforehand. Because it’s an indolent infection ie not all bacteria multiplying simultaneously and drugs work on disrupting replication, treatment is necessarily lengthy to get them all.
Cured implies no more destructive bacteria. Disability caused by the then-living bacteria canot be reversed. So curing 1600 cases is possible but the damage remains. So progressive disability is halted, and the disease is cured.
If they get to the victim soon enough the disease can be cured with little damage.
The Leprosy Mission has also pioneered restorative surgery that returns most (in a few cases, all) of the functions lost due to the nerve damage caused by the leprosy bacteria.
So while drugs alone cannot cure in the widely-understood sense, the Leprosy Mission *does* not only cure thousands in the technical sense of cure but also cures in the widely-understood sense hundreds of victims each year.
So Yes, cured – but not by drugs alone.
(Nor by prayer, alone before anyone asks.)
When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
And Jesus said to the man, “Well, I guess it all depends on what you mean by the term ‘clean’…”
I thought the name ‘leprosy’ was out of favour now, and ‘Hansen’s Disease’ was the in nomenclature..?
I’ve often wondered that when Ben Hur’s mother and sister are cured at the end, by The Cross, do their noses grow back ?
@Ottoking: – I don’t know. Wouldn’t that depend upon whether they remained Jews or by accepting the Christ, became Christians, surely?
@ Ottokring
Ben-Hur is a children’s book – it doesn’t have to deal with inconvenient details. So a “miraculous cure” would result in full restoration
@John77 – …and there was me, just trying to make a joke about differences in Judeo-Christian physiognomy…
Oy Vey you’re a tough crowd.
Alms for an ex-leper, guv’nor?
@ John Galt
Yes, I noticed – but at the date at which “Ben-Hur” is set all Christians except one household were Jewish so there wasn’t any difference…