Doctors & patients at US's only leprosarium divided on mysteries of leprosy

[book review]

Doctors & patients at US's only leprosarium divided on mysteries of leprosy
January 26, 1957
January 1957
Carville, Louisiana
original article
Sioux City Journal (Sioux City, Iowa)
No items found.
The patient, his hands melted away by leprosy, laughed: "no, don't take my picture," he said. "I’ll break the camera." Is his ancient joke tragic or funny? As you walk through the corridors of the nation's only leprosarium, you get no answer, only more questions - hazy, disturbing questions about a hospital filled with conflict. You are not even sure if the government - at a cost of $1,600,000 a year - should operate such a hospital. Most of the 300 patients seem to feel there is no need. They feel social fright, not medical sense, has placed them in forced isolation, sometimes for years, sometimes for life. Their battle is not against a germ but against a public attitude that pictures leprosy as terrifying and unclean. They feel more leprosy sufferers would seek earlier treatment if it did not mean forced segregation...
The patient, his hands melted away by leprosy, laughed: "no, don't take my picture," he said. "I’ll break the camera." Is his ancient joke tragic or funny? As you walk through the corridors of the nation's only leprosarium, you get no answer, only more questions - hazy, disturbing questions about a hospital filled with conflict. You are not even sure if the government - at a cost of $1,600,000 a year - should operate such a hospital. Most of the 300 patients seem to feel there is no need. They feel social fright, not medical sense, has placed them in forced isolation, sometimes for years, sometimes for life. Their battle is not against a germ but against a public attitude that pictures leprosy as terrifying and unclean. They feel more leprosy sufferers would seek earlier treatment if it did not mean forced segregation...
related Stanley Meisler articles by topic:
No items found.
search for leprosy on Amazon.com