Ocular leprosy in Hawaii: the past

Leprosy in Hawaii dates back to about 1840. The first recorded ocular leprosy is from the 1880s. Robert Louis Stevenson and Jack London both wrote descriptions of the ocular signs of leprosy. Pinkerton in 1927 and Van Poole in 1934 reported large series of patients with ocular leprosy. In 1973 there were about 2,168 cases of leprosy in the 50 states. Most ophthalmologists practice in areas where there are leprosy patients.