River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1883-03-15
The Leper Hospital, Tracadie,
New brunswick.

It is not easy to give an idea OF the
impression produced by the first sight
of the lepers. Strong men have tainted
and turned sick at the sight of such af-
fiicted. The ward first visited is that of
the men. Here there are exempiitied
various stages of the disease. To an in
experienced eye some of these men look
well and strong: but alas, they will tell
you that the deadly symptoms are there,
either in discoloration of the skin, swell
;ngs, contracted joints, or some other
fatal sigh. One of the surest indications
aaam to be the contraction of the mus
cles between and thumb and index fin
ger; this is said to be a popularity of the
disease. The flesh sometimes becomes
destitute of all feeling, is insensible to
burns or cuts; in these cases there is
great internal suffering. There is now
Ill the hospital a man whose aim in life
seems to have been higher than that oil
his companions IN misfortune,
and whose habits are such
that the offensive nature of the disease
caused him intense mental agony. He
is in appearance strong and active, and
his manner most prepossessing. He
takes pleasure in gardening and reading,
and plays the violin fairly well. In his
case the fatal maiady has broken out
after lying dormant for three gener-
ations. The most pi.tiful object in the
house is a young man VINO presents an
aspect scarcely human; he is swathed In
flannel and seated in a chair near the
stove; his face and hands are covered
with white scales; his face, from which
the nose has disappeared, is most fear
fully distorted, and every now and then
he gives a sort of whistling cough that
seems to come from lungs in the last
stage of decay. The sisters say that his
whole body is mass of these dry white
scales, that keep constantly falling oil;
in the morning his bed is covered with
them. His voice, like his cough, though
faint, is most thrilling, and haunts one
for many days. Some little boys, too
young to realize the blight that has fallen
on their lives, are gay and happy, hay
ing very keen appreciation of the Gull
nary comforts of the hospital. Among
the occupants of the mems ward there Is
a look of listless sadness that one Is glad
to find absent from the faces of the wo-
men, who, with that facility for accom-
modating themselves to circumstances
peculiar to the sex, have managed b.
give their apartments "a home-like as
pect. Here they sew, knit, weave and
spin, and when their strength permits,
assist in the washing and nursing, for
which work they are always paid.
Among all the patients, male and female,
their reigns wonderful spirit of resig-
nation; their devoted pastor and their
no less devoted nurses have instilled a
spirit of meekness and fortitude very
tor m a IN
Gods will and carry the cross, if not
cheerfully at least bravely. The fixed
idea of each that his or her disease is
not leprosy and is not incurable is
merciful hailuciDation; for which their
comrades dying before them in all the
agonies of strangulation or sutfocation,
the prospect of the same ending
to their own sufferings would bemost too
much for human endurance calmly to
contemplate. 1t is not etiquette when
in the wards to speak OF leprosy-the
word is considered insulting: it IS Ia
fnaladie." The revulslon offeeling since
the favorable change in the management
Of the hospital and of the patients would
be lraught with one dangerous result
unless checked BY prudent surveillance.
The friends and relations who 'front.'
TO time come to visit Il cir sick are not
sufficiently afraid of the possibility ofeoa-
tagion and would not sufficiently guard
aga nst ii if they were not checked by
the rules Of the institution. An eminent
Ottawa physician has given as his opin-
ion that the disease may be ineulcated,
may be impaired through the close in
tercourse of domestic life; that some fire.
sides where it has long been habored
would be a dangerous resting place, and
that members of families predisposed to
the disease are those Who are in the
greatest danger of contracting 1.-THE
Catholic World.