The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-09-27

Archbishop for their confirmation.
is not to be wondered at that Arch
oishop Bienk, always a priest of grea'
eioquence, should have found in thi:
scene the text for one of the mos
eloquent sermons he has ever preached
on Il he Man of Sorrows,''
Great is the contrast between
these TWO pictures, the contrast in tbs
| treatment of the lepers in the two
cases was even greater. The Mary
land leper was finally deposited in {
mountain hut. The home of his Louisi-
ana brother is as well equipped as any
hospital in the country.
Thoroughly ventilated. steam heated
with baths of every kind. it is equip
ped with every convenience. To these
| improvements is largely due the i'm
jprovement in the physical condition
of the lepers.
! Formerly it was almost impossible
J to keep them warm with the open
CRATES usual in Southern homes. Their
/ skin being dead the heat could not
/ penetrate through it and the cold
! seemed to get into their bones and stay
there. They crouched around, the fire
! vainly endeavoring to get warm. and,
/ as their skin is insensible to burns
many of them were badly burned and
scorched in their desperate efforts TO
get close enough to the fire to keep
warm.
/ The steam heat has obviated all this.
and the lepers are now warm in winter
for the first time in their lives AS
for baths. they have all they want
and baths have been found the best
means of checking the ravages of the
disease.
The cottages and other buildings
have been rendered proof against the
damp, which is injurious to lepers The
fixtures are all of iron or enamel and
the greatest care is taken to destroy
all waste and to sterilize all clothing,
so that none of the germs of leprosy
may survive.
While there have always been Catho-
lie priests and sisters willing to min
lister to the lepers, even at the risk of
their lives, the change in the attitude
of the public in Louisiana toward the
home and toward leprosy in general
is the result of careful study of the
disease in Louisiana during the last
half dozen years. This has accomplish
ed great medical victory 1t has
shown that there is no danger of the
transmission of the disease with proper
precautions that it can be held in
check and finally-this discovery has
been made within the year-that it can
be entirely cured, except in its last
stages.
The world received this last an
nouncement with some hesitation at
first, and even the Berlin congress of
leprologists was uncertain and await
ed further developments. These have
fully confirmed all that was promised
and the indications are. that 1eprosy.
~
years, having been brought there from
Acadia (now New Brunswick by the
exiled Acadians, will be completely ex-
tinct in d comparatively few years. I
a number OF cured lepers have all
ready been dismissed from the home
others are practically cured, but it has
been deemed safest to let them remain !
in the home year or a year and a !
half after all traces of the disease have
There are only two in
mates who are beyond cure. These
will soon die, and with them will pass
away leprosy in Louisiana.
All this has been accomplished in d !
comparatively few years, and with
many difficulties in the way on ac-,
count of the popular prejudice and the
ignorance that prevailed in regard to
the disease. Ten years ago such Incl
cents recently disgraced Maryland
and West Virginia in regard to the
Syrian leper might have occurred here
and indeed did occur.
The leper home was originally in New
Orleans, and although thoroughly iso-
lated there was a strong prejudice
against it which finally resulted in it's
removal The old Indian Camp plan
tation in Iberville parish was then
letSo5 for no was
Guided place on the Mississippi River,
4 deserted sugar plantation.
The site, however is incOnvenient,
because II is difficult to reach from New
Orleans and it was from. New Orleans
that the principal medical advice was
10 come, DIR. Isidore Dyer, the advising
physician and one of the greatest liv-
ng lepcolOgists, being resident of that
,ity. The board in charge of the iepers
bought secretly home for
he lepers just above the city limits In
Jefferson parish
AS soon as the news leaked out there
vas wild excitement in Jefferson and
mob marched to the plantation house s
n which it was proposed to settle the
epers and burned it down. There was
| similar movement in Iberville to GUST !
he Iepers from the Indian Camp place,
ut fortunately better counsel prevailed
md today the prejudice has almost en-
irely disappeared.
There had long been periodical scares
N the subject. About ten years be
ore the oreaniza ton of the board there
vas such scare in and Saround st.
one of the Oldest towns {
n the State. the City of Evangeline, y
the Paris of Acadia as it has been {
allied. \ physician ran across a case
If Ieprosy there. The facts We're ex-
,ggerated, and soon reports spread
through the neighboring country that
st. Martinsville was full of leprosy.
The parish of st. Martin quarantlned
against the town of st. MartlnsFllle,
he seat of justice, and armed men :
the roads to prevent any rel {
lgees from escaping from the town and
preading the disease. 1t became nee t