Los Angeles herald., 1906-06-04
TREAT LEPERS
BY ISOLATION
NO CURE HAS YET BEEN FOUND
FOR LEPRoSY
Santa Ana Case Prompts Los Angeles
Expert to Tell Most Advanced
Methods for Graphing With
Dread Evil

Living in little tent near the OUT
skirts of Santa Ana, watched over by
guards and his meals left for him at a
certain spot as though he were an ami
mai. Wong Bu Chinese leper is
slowly reaching that stage of the dread
disease when he will no longer be able
to leave his tent and the good people
of Santa Ana are staying awake nights
in an effort to secure a nurse for the
celestial.
When the Santa Anans learned that
leprosy had broken out i'm the Chinese
quarter they burned the place and even
the cats and dogs were thrown back In
the fire when they attempted to escape
the flames 1t was a precaution to stop
the disease and Wong Blu, the old
leper, was isolated in a tent and from
that time on the people have been won
dering how they can care Cor him.
In San Francisco many cases of lep-
rosy were reported but no trace of the
victims could be found until one day
Chinatown police officer discovered
that the celestials took their diseased
friends down to the lowest floors of
their underground burrows and chained
them there, feeding them each day by
lowering food to them until the disease
finally killed them.
The Los Angeles county hospital Off
cials have thus far been the only west
ern medical men to successfully handle.
cases of leprosy. DIR. G. Z. Barber
of the county hospital has cared for
four cases and tells his experience with
them as follows:
Must Be Isolated
''There is only one way to handle
| case of leprosy and that is to isolate
1t. There is no cure yet discovered for
the disease and although l have even
gone so far as to study the most emil
nent authorities among the oriental
countries, there is not even a system
of relief.
1.-THE Santa Ana people have sug-
gested that a trained nurse be hired
to attend the leper, but that would be
impossible. A physician of st. Louis
was the only man who ever attempted
to tend a leper and he escaped without
contracting the disease and obtained
some valuable Information regarding
the disease, but the leper did not bene-
fit by it.
II had the first case of leprosy, sew
eral years ago when 1 first went to the
county hospital. There were three men
there then and they were being tended
in a poor sort Of {. place in one side
of the grounds.
A Skin Disease
I'VE built a nice little cottage for
them and divided the rooms off nicely.
Then we built a high stockade about
this cottage and left enough room for
the inmates to have a garden. One
was an Austrian sailor who had be-
come infected in the West India islands.
Another was a Chinese who had con-
tracted the dread disease in the north
and another was Spaniard.
"All had the symptoms to more
or less marked degree.
"Leprosy is skin disease and the
germ is one of darkness and closely
resembles a tuberculosis germ. The
first symptom we look for is a thick
ening of the skin on the forehead,
ears and chin.
The skin often without wrinkling |
will become like leather and be very
thick. Then spots appear on the body |
and while these spots are sensitive |
at distance you could stick pin in |
the flesh and the patient would not |
know it. The third symptom is the |
shooting pains which cause misery in
the earlier stages of the disease, but
which later disappear and then the
body slowly decays.
First the skin becomes peculiarly
white and the fingers gradually drop
off, a joint at a time. THE next appear
ance Of the disease is at the edges of
the nostris and mouth, and then later
the internal organs are attacked and
the patient dies.
Death In Seven Years
"This generally happens in about
seven years
1.-The Chinese we had at the hospital
was cheerful and worked in the lit
tie garden all the time. He was suf-
fering from the first shock of the dis
ease, and an ordinary person could not
tell he had it. He later escaped and
fled to San Francisco.
1.-The Austrian and Spaniard lived
there cheerfully. They had full out
fit inside the place, with water and
cooking utensils. Every day we took
them their meals and put them inside
the gate. The eatables were always
sent in on wooden platters and we
never took anything out.
when they died we burned the
place.
"The next case we had was some
months ago, when a Hawaiian woman
was sent to the county hospital She !