The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1878-09-05
LEPROsY.

II LEPROSY.
How the Plague was introduced Among
the New Brunswick Fishermen.
From the Boston Plot.I, -
Fifty miles from Miramichi, N. B.,
among the marshes Of the Gloucester
shore. lies the ancient French village Of
Tracadie, with its pest-house for lepers.
The Gulf of St. Lawrence contains
many q spot where weird legends of
wreck and murder alright the habi-
tant, but Tracadie is "the place of the
living CURSE The village, a stray
Cling, ill-omened looking settlement,
contains about hundred houses, scat
tered along each side of main street.
They are chiefly fishermen's cabins,
with matched roofs and walls garish
from whitewash. The parish church
stands on q brow looking over the
beach, and hard by is the lazaretto, an
ungainly structure of gray stone sur
rounded by a lawn. The country
round about is naked and uninhabited.
The waves, rolling over a shallow
strand, keep up u monotonous soDping,
which the cries of the gull and curieW
overhead do not relieve. Except the
fishermen, who ply their call.-ng m 2 2
quiet, timid way, as though afral.. 70
disturb the sufferers ON the hill, there is
no sign of human life. Occasionally,
two or three of the Hotel Dieu nuns,
who have charge of the patients, or a
Trappist monk, who helps the sisters in
their awful mission, fit up and down
the street, and at rare intervals a tray
eler comes along, but, like the prudent
Levite, tpassing by on the other side.r
The lazaretto was built in 1917.
Prior to that the lepers were Gagged in a
wooden house on Sheldrake Island in
the Miranliehi River. The disease has
been the subject of consideration for
several medical commissions appointed
by the New Brunswick Government, all
of which fix its first appearance In this
province in 1853, although they differ
widely as to its true nature. In that
year French trading vessel, the In.
dienne, which had just come off the
Levant trade, ran into Windy Bay with
a general cargo for fur barter. While
entering the bay the vessel was caught
ina sudden gale and stranded, going to
pieces during the night. The fisher
men came to the aid Of the crew and
welcomed themto their cabins. Among
the goods shipped by the Indienne while
in the Mediterranean was bale of old
clothes bought from Smyrna dealer
These the crew distributed to their hosts,
and thus came the plague. On Decem.
Der "a the first case appeared. A saint
~ missionary to whom the patient was
brought for laying on Of hands was puz-
zled with the symptoms, and twas not
until the following spring when the re-
gion OF Beaubair was filled with plague
that the stricken people knew that it
was leprosy. Father Menien, priest
who had travelled in the East, discovered
1t, and though he urged stringent quar-
antine measures, the sufferers fed far and
wide, vainly hoping to leave the blight
behind. Some went to Caraquet and
others to Prince Edward Island, but
most of them fastened to the western
shore, and, hapless pioneers, founded
the settlements of Pockmouche, Nigua-
meche, and Tracadie, where the disease
still fingers. In those days there were
few settlers and fewer. doctors In this
countryi ana the leper was lett to die
uncared for. He was not, IN truth,
compelled, az IN the time OF Moses, to
put q covering upon his upper lip and
cry, sUnclean, unclean,' y but he, was
forced to "dwell alone; without the
camp shall his habitation be- For
more than so years the victims were
seized, suffered their nnspeakable mis-
cry, and died thus in their solitude; for
1t was not until 1878 that the provincial
authorities had money enough to be hui