Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1885-12-05
MIsKIN HANF.

Vivid Description Of the Iepers' Hospital
Paris Journal des DebatA
There are now few of these establish
ments left, and il is not too much to say
that in the one I have just visited
human misery seems to have attained
its highest pitch. saw numbers of be-
ings sightless, their faces distorted ont of
all shape, their hands and toes having
dropped of, their voices gone. breathing
with desperate effort, their skin peeling
off and black as that of mummy, in
sensible to pain when pricked in cer-
tain parts of the body. Their feet and
TANKS are covered with horrible Sores
Through which what is lef to them OF
life Gibbs away. Their attitude Is ore OF
profound apathy and exhaustion, End I
could not help being reminded OF the
saying of one of the leper OF Aesta:
Endless seem the nights when the mind
is dwelling upon desperate present and
a hopeless future" And yet amid all
these horrible scenes their live married
couples and children, the latter of whom.
free from disease as yet, play about like
other children, regardless of the spectacle
which they have before them.
One of these vretched men, not more
than thirty, but among the most af1 icte d
has q very pretty wife and child who
is fresh and rosy like young Cupid. A
young fellow of twenty five, but who is
so cadaverous that he might be 100, a
mere walking corpse, has wife fifteen
years older than himself, and herself
ravaged by the same disease. This wo
man was married before, but her first
husband put her away when he noticed
symptoms of leprosy. He married again
and had child, which at his death he
confided to the care of his first wife,
who reared it. This child grew up and
has since married and had children, all
of them living together in this hospital.
1t is said that the disease is not con-
tagious, as the governor, who has been
there forty years, has a wife and six
children, who enjoy the best of health.
The brother Of one of the lepers, who is
q soldier in a neighboring barrack, Gomez
to see him whenever he can get leave,
and he has not caught the disease, while
DR.. Zambaco comes twice week and
handles the lepers with perfect impuni-
ty. DR.. ZamSaco, who is one Of the
leading Greek physicians at CONSTANT
nople, is of the opinion, that it is not at
all contagious, and that, though occasion
ally inherited, the main cause being pri-
walton and want.
Among the lepers at the Miskin Hane
is one who owes his malady to having
been struck by lightning, while a second
became leper after sudden fright. But
in the east the conviction that leprosy
is contagious still has very firm root,
and for this reason at Mecca, while the
lepers are given food and clothing, they
never receive any money, the belief be-
ing that it would spread the disease
wien put into circulation again. 80 at
Scutaria the lepers are literally inclosed
within living tomb, as the Miskin
Hane is the center of the vast cemetery
in which so many millions of dead have
been inferred since Constantinople was
first built, and is surrounded by the
splendid cypress tree, the dark green OF
which contrasts so we'll with the blue
outline of the Sea of Marmora and the
shores of Asia Minor in the distance.
The hospital itself is quadrilaterial
abou 12O feet long and with only one
story. To the entrance is small mos
1ue, in which the lepers recite their five
prayers day, this being their only dis
raction. In the center is the court
Yard, upon which open twenty rooms,
md it is in these that twenty-seven suf-
erers drag on a miserable existence.
Their rooms are lighted with a small
vindo a, with wooden bars, while in the
way of furniture here is nothing but a
mattress thrown oon the gro und and
eW common utensils.