The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1878-07-28
LOATHSOME LEPERS.
TWO DISGUSTING CASES DISCOVERED
ON BLACKwELLs ISLAND,
NEW YORK.
Their sIckenIng Condition Minutely Des.
==as>Hsa-EGnxv E1,av IRE Treated mt
the MORnitHI,
fSt. Louis Globe Democrat.


NEW York. July 23.-The World has
discovered two cases OF leprosy in this
city, and will describe them tomorrow
in an article from which the following
are extracts: At window, in one cor
ner Of ward No. II Of Charity Hospital,
on Blackwell's Island, sit two strange
looking parties nearly the whole live
long day, whose disColored features,
swollen limbs and bandaged feet show
that they are afflicted with q disease
happily not often met with here. They
are lepers.
One of them is too sore to move, save
when 1t Is positively necessary. The
other, although much further advanced
In the disease and almost sure to waste
away within another year, Is at present
as lively as cricket, but being loathed
even by the worst patients in the same
ward keeps to his corner, and sees no
more Of the outside world than he can
get by looking from the window which
commands view of the east channel Of
the river, with the dingy brick walls
and black chimney stacks Of Hunters
Point, and o few Astoria villas in the
distance. These are the first lepers
even admitted to this hospital, and they
have been there only short time. One
Of them, Abraham Brown, is a
New Yorker by birth, and Is fifty
four years old. The other, Emile
Trenal, Is q native of Santiago
de Cuba, and only nineteen years
old, Trenal has been afflicted about
five years, and is now thought to be in
the last stages Of the disease, having oc-
casional fevers. Brown has the disease
In q more acute form, and although it Is
less than two years since he first en-
tered
THE BALTIMORE CITY HOSPITAL,
the disease has so invaded his whole
body that he presents q frightful ap-
pearance. His hands and feet are
almost black and covered with ulcers :;
his fingers are enlarged to nearly three
times their former size, so that the ends
stand apart like the claws OF fowl.
His nails have fallen out. His face liz
not 30 badly swollen, but his features
have an expression Of despair, that
makes 1t painful to look at him. Nearly
all his beard has fallen off. The hair Of
his head Is thin, dry and lusterless, and
his eyebrows are perfectly bare.
Around the iris of each eye Is an In
distinct, light, yellow ring, about an
inch in width, and the peculiar canine
appearance always noticeable in lepers
is well marked. Brown brought his
leprosy from Cuba, whittier he went in
3.
His case seems the more deplorable for
the reason that he is an old New Yorker;
that he Is an intelligent man; that he
has led an upright life, but, above all,
from the fact that he feels so keenly
that he Is an object of universal loath-
ing. No one cares to go near him, ex-
cept the physicians, who have not the
slightest fear, being satisfied that the
disease is not and never was contagious.
The other leper, Trenal, is a terrible OBJ
ject to look upon. His face has become
80 swollen as to be utterly unrecogniza-
BILE; The color Of the skin is light,
ySGiTtsh G2d fFhs o end "P Of
the nose is distended to breadth of
fully two inches. The only hair on his
face is his eyelashes. The eyebrows
were the first to disappear. The curly
hair Of his forehead has turned from O.
jet black to brick red, and on the back
Of his head, especially around the
edges, the hair has turned purple and
brown. On the crown of the head 1t re-
tains somethink like its original color.
He has one Of the brightest pair Of eyes
ever seen ia mans head. They are
perfectly jet black over the iris, and
with white cornea that glistens like
the whitest polished ivory. Trenal told
the reporter that he was nineteen years
old. II he said fifty, he might have
been believed all the same, so far as the
indications Of his face were concerned
The physicians have no hope Of curing
the lepers. They say that, although it
is claimed that lepers have been cured,
no we'll authenticated case Of cure has
has ever been recorded, All they can
do Is to mitigate the disease as much as
possible, simply by watching the symp-
toms and preventing complications, and
seeing that the victims suffer as little