Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-08-18
A DOMINION LAZARETGO.

A DOMINION LAZARETGO.
HOW the Curse nf Leprosy Was Brought
10 the tOspltabIe Fishermen OF Windy
Ray, n. IL.
Fifty miles from here, 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 a spot
where the weird legions OF wreck and
murder alright the haditn1t, but Ira
cadie is "the living curse" The village,
a struggling, ill-omened looking settle
ment, contains about one hundred houses,
scattered along each side of q main
street They are chiefly fishermen S
cabins, with matched roofs and walls
garish from whitewash. The parish
church stands on brow looking oyer
the beach, and hard by the lazaretto, an
ungainly structure of gray stone surround
ed by lawn. The country roundabout
is naked and un1nhabited. The waves,
rolling over shallow strand, keep up q
monotonous sobbing, which the cries Of
the gull and curleW overhead do not re-
Heve. Except the fishermen, who play
their calling in a quiet, timid way, as
though afraid to disturb the sufferers Oh
the hill, there is no sign of human life.
Occasionally two or three of the Hotel
Dieu nuns, who have charge of the pa
tients, or Trappist monk, who helps the
sisters in their awful mission, fits up
and down the street; and at rare intervals
a traveller comes along, but, like the
prudent Levite, passing by on the other
side"
The lazaretto was built in 1S47. Prior
to that the lcpers were Gagged in a wooden
house on Sheldrake island, in the Mira
nlichi river. The disease has been the
subject of consideration for several medi-
cal commissions appointed by the New
Brunswick Government, all of which fix
its first appearance in this Province in
l75S, although they differ widely as to its
true nature In that year n French trad
ing vessel, the Indienne, which had just
come off the Levant trade, ran into Windy
Bay with general cargo for fur barter.
While entering the bay the vessel was
caught in sudden gale and stranded,
going to pieces during the night. The
fishermen came to aid the crew and well
coined them to their cabins. Among the
goods shipped by the Indenne 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 the 24th
OF December the first case appeared. A
sanity missionary to whom the patient
was brought for the laying on of hands,
was puzzled with the symptoms, and it
was not until the following spring, when
the region Of Beaubair was filled with
plague, that the stricken people knew it
was leprosy.
Father Menier, priest who had trav-
eled in the East, discovered it, and
though he urged stringent quarantine
measures, the sufferers fed far and wide,
vainly hoping to leave the blight behind.
Some went to Caraquet and others to
Prince Edward Islands, but most of them
fastened to the western shore, and, hap
less pioneers, founded the settlement of
Pockmouche, Niguameche and Tracadie,
where the disease still fingers. In those
days there were few settlers and few doc
tors in this country, and the leper was
left to die uncared-for. He was not, in
truth, compelled, as in the time Of Moses,
to ''put a covering upon his upper lily
and cry, 'Unclean, unclean.'" but he was
forced to "dwell alone; without the
camp shall his habitation be-" For more
than sixty years the victims were seized,
suffered their unspeaKable misery, and
died thus, in their solitude; for it was
not until 1918 that the Provincial author
tiles haG money enough to be humane.
Wooden shanties were then put up for
the reception of the afflicted, and as a
rule those who had recovered from the
disease were employed as nurses. It was
not easy to find other nurses. In 1910,
DR.. La Billois, of Dalhousie, N. B., at
tended the Tracadie suffers and rendered
heroic service. In 1914, medical com
mission built the refuge on Sheldrake Is.
land, and, three years later, the Provin.
cial Government built the Tracadie Pest
House.
There is now an average of forty pa
tients there. Some say it is the Mosaic
leprosy, others that it is the elephantiasis
of the Arabs. 1t is not hereditary; the
parents may be clean and their offspring
unclean. Neither is it contagious in the
abstract sense, for a husband may be
come leper and his wife waiting upor
him, may escape. The Tracadie patients
however, all think they caught their dis
ease from sleeping in unclean beds o.
wearing leper's clothing. The patien
first suffers from lassitude and sleepless
ness then comes fever, which is succeed
ed by intense numbness of the limbs
The skin, at first unnaturally white, il