Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1915-12-24
BY WOODS HUTCHINSON, NJ. d.

Early Impressions cling most tena-
ciously and echo longest I'm our memories.
No matter how baseess or irrational
they may be later found to be. they stir
hold us in their grip on our emotional
side and hag-ride our imaginations.
Some of these fears which are so care
fully implanted in our infant minds had
at one time certain amount of rational
basis and were what the student OF ami
NAL psychology would term protective
reactions" The quivering dread of the
dark, for instance. which is now one of
our chief obstacles in getting bedroom
windows kept open at night, for fear OF
the "boogers that will git you II you don't
watch out" was quite eXcusable in jungle
days when proving beasts of prey shifted
at the doorway of the hut and swept the
very streets of the village under cover
Of night.
Its sister superstition, the profound be
lief in the unwholesoneness of night air.
especially just after shutdown, had some
classification in tropical and sub-tropical
ancestral times from the malaria and yell
low fever bearing mosquitoes which fly
at this hour.
In similar fashion the panic terror and
loathin gand dread which the very word
''leper" rouses in our b1soms had GER
tain amount of rational basis in the MID
die Ages, when leprosy was almost as
common as advanced consumption Is now
and the whole known world was dotted
with leper houses and leper colonies.
But in this age OF sanitation and decent
civilized habits of living, these panic
fears are almost as absurdly exaggerated,
as utterly out of proportion to the real
faaN Of night
air and of the dark, The actual danger
Of any one i'm these United states dying
OF leprosy is about as great as being
struck by lightning or killed in a rail-
road accident, and the risk Is steachy
diminishing.
This of course, is not for a moment
IN DENY that leprosy is a dreadful ana
loatbsome disease for which no specliic
cure "a known, and the prospect OF whose
treatment occurrence and spread In com
mundty would justly be viewed Win
horror and alarm.
We know the disease as thoroughlV as
We know tuberculosis or cancer the pa
cillus that causes it, the different iorIns
which IL assumes and every step Oh lts
course through progressive cripphngs ana
disbursements to the fatal emo but
with all this, the simple fact OF the mat
ter Is that more than half our popular
heI,efs about leprosy are unfounded, and
the remainder outrageously exaggerated
- We are justified in taking every reason
able and rigorous precaution against the
pospible spread of the disease when once
it has landed on our shores. But let US
at cast know and face the actual Iacts'
in order that our panic-strickeh eIioIs
to protect ourselves may not be as crue
and barbarous TO the handful OF uh-
fortunate victims as they are shametui
and disgraceful to u.s.
Every year or so the papers are filled
with accounts of come unfortunate leper'
usually an immigrant, or one who has
resided in the tropics. who is literally
hunted and Gagged like a wild beast or
fled from like a mad dog
The state in which he is discovered
orders him deported, only TO have the
freight car in. which he is shipped met
at the state line by armed guards and
turned back. Then he is isolated in some
wretched shelter surrounded by half a
mile of six-foot barbed wire fence, with
his food and water carried to him each
day by a guard who retires to a safe
distance before he allows the captive to
ccme out and get 1t.
Finally he is either shipped, after pro
longed and tremendous diplomatic negoti'
ations between the various states which
he must cross, 10 some one OF our re"
leper hospitals, or else, as actually oe-
CURED only about three years ago, th'
moor wretch is found dead I'm his shelter
- some morning with bullet through hi
heart. and everybody breathes sigh o
relief and says: He was sure to di'
soon. anyhow. poor creature.
The latest cast. just I'm the last rev
weeks is that of a soldier in the United
States army who contracted the dlseas
while on service in the Philippines an'
who was eRtitled TO pension ana TN
best of hospital care, just like any on
else disabled in the course OF duty ye
whom various states refused to establish
a shelter for or receive him into an
existing leper hospital because he ha
not established a residence.
Finally. after months of palaver an
legal obstruction, he was transported d
an iron sheathed car, under a guard o
armed soldiers, to leper home In DIS
tant state, and the car In which he traV
eled solemnly burned with all its equip
ment as soon as he was safely delivered
There was actually even serious tai
OF sending him clear 10 Molokai in IN
Hawaiian Islands, for lack of a prope
institution in all this wide country.
There should be established at ono,
in the name OF humanity ana common
sense, for both the peace of mind an
prompt protection of the public and n
kindly care OF these pitiable unfortl
mates, who are only discovered on a
average about one I'm two years. a M
tional leper hospital or leprosarium VI
- der the charge Of the United States arm
or public health service.
Here they could be organized into
colony and made almost self-supportin
for the disease, with all its loss OF finge
and toes and even OF parts OF limbs,
surprisingly slightly disabling Its vi