The daily gazette., 1880-05-04
The LepeT's Home.

MEN AND WOMEN TERRIBLY CRIPPLED
WAITING FOR DEATH TO 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 terri
BILE disease finds many victims among
the low caste Cubans and the poverty
stricken Chinese, though it reaches
its gaunt fingers into better society
sometimes Leprosy is either inherit
ed or induced by poor food, and es-
pecially by the eating of stale fish. 1t
seems to be a fish-eaters' disease, in
fact, seldom prevailing at any great
distances from the sea. Leprosy, as
seen in the West Indies is simply
dry-rot. The soul of a man is impris-
oned in his body long after he is, to all
intents and purposes, dead, and with
all his mental faculties intact, he must
endure the gradual falling apart of his
earthly tenement, awaiting with what
philosophy he may the hour when the
cancerous agent shall touch a vital
point. This may not occur for many
years ; 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 might well be In
scribed over the portal "Let those
who enter here leave all hope behind"
The correspondent 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 resident physician and
United States sanitary officer an in
valid doctor from Hartford, and three
journalists. San Lazaro is located just
where in 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 untetter-
ed waves straight in from the north
ward, dashing up the spray almost to
its walls. The place was founded by
philanthropic Spaniard within trifle
of 200 years ago, and was restored in
1878. A liberal bequest of nei lbor-
ing property has always afford d an
ample revenue for it's suppoi but
within short time the COVE, ment
has converted portion ofits p' perty
and, as one of the officials of the insti-
tuition remarked, matters were mot
SO good" In form, the hospital is a
large quadrangle, centering upon a
chapel. A high wall divides the wards
of the men and the women. We en-
tered the male department first.
The leading popularity of the pa
tients met lettering in the corridors
was claylike appearance of the skin
and depression or caving in of the
nasal portion of the face. The nos
trils and lobes of the ear were globular
and holes were formed over the eye
brows. 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,
shriveled, warped and decayed, and
yet these arms found cunning enough
to grasp and remove hats from matted
heads of hair when we rendered few
hits of Spanish currency.
We saw in these lower corridors
perhaps forty men. Some were new
comers, upon whom the disease had
put but few marks as yet. Others
were almost ready to go to the hope
less ward above, where we presently
climbed. Here, upon beds in dou-
BILE row., were the vestiges of what
had once been men-corpses which
breathedin speechless agony-through
the long weeks and which yet clung
to life as though even under these
conditions it was sweet to exist. Tat,
tered drapings hung from these BREATH
ing skeletons, whose very pose was the
attitude of despair. No picture of
Dore's illustrative of the Inferno could
overdraw a scene like this. Enough |
of this. 1t was with relief that we
walked across a pleasant garden,
planted with bananas and figs, and |
entered 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 slaving through the |
heat of years to alleviate the sufferings |
of those with whom they are appoint
ed to live. The scenes amid the women
were but repetition of those across
the rectangle. A few were telling
their beads, some sewed, and all were
neat in person and surroundings to the
last degree. A bright little boy ran
toward us with an orange in either
band. He was the pet of the hospital.
His mother was an inmate far-gone
with the disease. He was not yet old
enough to know the fate that awaits
him. What a pity this bright little
,hap is not taken as a subject for sci
'ntific experiment. Can it not be that
here exists some means of driving
nut the venom and building up the
ystem of the unhappy progeny of
parc with haaltbu tisc1ac