There is at the present time a considerable redistribution of populations taking place in the world, with the consequent redistribution of disease from endemic to non-endemic areas and to susceptible populations.

Havens of Refuge is the history of the incursion of inhabitants from S.E. Asia into the north of Western Australia in pearling days, and the subsequent development of leprosy in the indigenous susceptible population.

The book does not deal with clinical details, but with the history of events relative to the introduction of leprosy, its spread and the efforts to contain it, based on and largely told in the words of contemporary observers and administrators, and it illustrates the fallacies of contemporary thought, now in danger of being repeated.

Today, leprologists throughout the world are displaying considerable anxiety because of the widespread appearance of Mycobacterium leprae totally resistant to the sulphone drugs which constitute our main chemotherapeutic treatments.

No resistant strain has yet appeared in Western Australia. It is inevitable, however, that it will arise or be imported and so early diagnosis becomes all the more important both for the individual and for the community.

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