We may regard the numbers in this TABLE up to 1885 as accurate; for the later years corrections will have to be made from the later enumerations, which may detect older, concealed cases. But these can only affect the figures to a limited degree. If we consider the TABLE closely, we see that in the first quinquennium (1856-60) the total number of lepers is 76 less, while those in their own homes are 380 less; during this period 585 lepers were admitted to the asylums. The number of lepers as a whole, then, was not much reduced, but at the end of the period there were 380 lepers fewer at home, or, in other words, there were among the people 380 fewer sources of infection, and to this we ascribe it that while the number of new cases was 1,148 in the years 1856-60, it fell in the years 1861-65 to 1,028. The mortality of the year 1856 we do not know; in the four following years 981 died--668 at home, in the asylums 313. If we assume that there died at home as many in 1856 as in 1857, viz., 230, then the number of deaths at home during the quinquennium would have amounted to 898, and the whole mortality, adding the 313 who died in the asylums, would have been 1,211--only 109 more than the new cases. But one must not so reckon. There died, especially in the early days, a much larger proportion in the asylums than outside; and it is evident, secondly, when one observes the figures in a district from which at the commencement only very few cases were sent to the asylum, that the new cases are much more numerous than the deaths. In Nordmoere, for example, the number of new cases from 1856-60, was 81; that of deaths, 46; only 14 were sent to the asylums, and the disease increased during the quinquennium, the cases rising from 105 to 119. One finds the same thing in Soendmoere--new cases 104, deaths 42, sent to asylums 28; number of cases in 1856, 178; in 1860, 195. In these two districts, then, the disease was evidently on the increase, and this would probably have been the case throughout the country, had many cases not been removed from their homes to the asylums; as, for example, in Soendfjord. Here there were, in 1856-60, 214 new cases, 116 deaths, 211 sent to the asylums; number of cases 1856, 431; 1860, 306. If we examine in this way the numbers in the different districts, we find everywhere that decrease of the disease depends on the numbers isolated in the asylums. Where isolation was insufficient or absent, there was no decrease, but either the numbers increased or remained stationary; where, on the contrary, isolation was thorough, the decrease was invariable. This can only be explained in one way, viz., that isolation is the cause of the decrease, and isolation can only have effected improvement by removing from the homes of the people the sources of infection. Further, during the next five years, the number of new cases in those districts where isolation was good continued to