The weekly herald. [volume] (Cleveland, Tenn.) 1876-1888, 1880-05-27
THE LEPRRS' HOME.
Men and Women Terribly Crippled
Waiting for Death 10 End Their Lives.

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Waiting for Death 10 End Their Lives.
A correspondent of the Philadelphia
Times has been visiting the Hospital de
San Lazaro, at Havana, the home of the
lepers. This ancient and terrible dis
ease finds many victims among the low
caste Cubans and the poverty stricken
Chine @, though it reaches its gaunt
fingers into better society sometimes.
Leprosy is either inherited or induced by
poor food, and especially by the eating
Of stale fish. 1t seems to be a fish
eaters disease, in fact, seldom prevail.
ing at any great distances from the sea.
Leprosy, rs seen in the West Indies, is
simply dry-rot. The soul of a man is
imprisoned in his body long after he is,
10 all intents and purposes. dead, and
with all his mental faculties intact, lie
must endure the gradua, falling apart
of his earthly tenement, awaiting with
what philosophy he may the hour when
the cancerous agent shall touch vital
point. This may not occur for many
wears; it may happen on the morrow.
The traditions of the hospital do not
point to any individual case of cure
whereby the patient may gain ever so
faint hope. 1t light well be inscribed
over the portal: LET those who enter
here leave all hope behind" The cor
respondent says:
There were five of us in the party
which drove out through the hot streets
toward the forbidding suburb facing the
sea-Doctor Burgess, an American resi-
dent physician and United States sani-
tary officer; an invalid doctor from
Hartford, and three journalists. San
Lazaro is located just where, in a more
| modern city, we might look for big and
prosperous hotel. 1t looks out across
a few low houses upon the fair prospect
of the harbor's mouth, and the sea sends
its unfetteren waves straight in from the
northward, dashing up the spray almost
to its walls. The place was founded by
q philPnthropic Spaniard within q trihe
Of 200 years ago, and was restored in
1878. A liberal bequest of neighboring
property has always afforded an ample
revenue for its support, but within a
short time the government has converted
a portion of its property, and, as one of
the officials of the institution remarked,
matters were mot so good" In form,
the hospital is O large quadrangle,
centerinS upon a chapel A high
wall divides the wards of the
men and the women. We entered the
male department first. The leading
popularity of the first patients met
lettering in the corridors was a claylike
appearance ofthe skin and a depression
or caving in of the nasal portion of the
face. Thenostrils and lobes of the ear
were globular and holes were formed
over the eyebrows. The voices of the
men were nearly all changed, sounding
indistinct and painful. Patients were
hidden to approach, who hobbled to US
upon the stumps of limbs long since
robbed, by the process of disease, of feet
and ankles, and they held out for our in
spection miserable remnants of arms
shrivt led, warped and decayed, md yel
these arms found cunning enough to
grasp and remove hats from matted
heads of hair when we rendered a few
bits of Spanish currency.
We saw in these lower corridors per-
haps forty men. Some were new-com
ers, upon whom the disease had put but
few marks as yet. Others were almost
ready to 90 to the hopeless ward above
where we presently climbed. Here
upon beds in double row, were the
vestiges of what had once been men
corpses which breatbed in speeches,
agony through the long week anc
which yet cluAg to life as though even
under these conditions it was sweet to
exist. Tattered drapings hung from
these breathing skeletons, whose every
pose was the attitude of despair. No
picture of Dore's illustrative of the In
ferno could overdraw II scene like this.
Enough of this. 1t was with relief that
we walked across a pleasant garden,
planted with bananas and figs, aud en-
tered the women's ward, under the
guidance of a fat but devout mother
superior. All respect to her and her
staff of nuns, who labor here among the
hopeless, pointing their fainting steps
upward and shaving through the heal
of years to alleviate the suffprings OF
those with whom they are appointed to
live. The scenes amid the women were
but repetition of those across the rect
angle. A few were telling their beads.
some sewed, and all were neat in person
aud surrounding to the last degree. A
bright little boy ran toward us with an
orange in either hand, He was the pei
of the hospital. His mother was an in
mate far. gone with the disease. He
not yet old enough to know the fate that
awaits him. What pity this bright
little chap is not taken as a subject for
scientific experiment. Can it not be
that there exists some means OF driving
out the venom and building up the sys-
tenn of the unhappy progeny of lepers
with healthy tiscuesp
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