A Visit to Lepers

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 64, 2 April 1937, Page 15

A Visit to Lepers

Story of Steadfast Courage

WHEN on a recent visit to Burma old Captain R kindly offered to show me round the hospitals and clinics, I was pleased to learn that our first port of call was the Kenunendine leper colony outside Rangoon (says a wrtyer in the Manchester Guardian). Perhaps "pleased" is not quite the rlght word to express the complexity of my emotions as I drove" along the torrld Rangoon streets at an unconsclonably early hour with the monumental flgure of old Captain R seated beside me. A feellng of cunous apprehension was mingled with my medical and historical interest In the objects I was about to see. As we drove my companion growled me out lnformation In his gruff and kindly voice whlch emerged through a bristle of moustache from beneath an enormous shiny topee, and for some moments I had the illusion of travelling with an infuriated tortoise that had suddenly found human utterance. "Joseph will be delighted to show you over the place," it, said, "but don't shake hands with him, he's a leper himself— wonderful character, Josephl" We drove over the threshold and stopped at the flrst building. Joseph came out to welcome us, Captain R — — roared an iritroduction and stumped off through the trees, and my tour began. Joseph came of German-Burmese parentage and devoted his wealth to the colony which he had tended for many years. He was of slight build, with greying hair and an eager, glancing manner. His features showed signs of past ravages of the disease, now probably quiescent. The most remarkable thing about him was an enthusiasm still unquenched by his surroundings. "pTEtST he showed me the dispensary where he compounded vast quantities of chaulmoogra pills for his four hundred odd patients. Happily, the chaulmoogi-a tree grows wlld in the jungle, and its beans afford the essential cure for the disease. He told me of an old legend, how. a king of Burma was cured of his leprosy when he sat under an undoubted chaulmoogra tree centuries ago. But then, legends have an irritating habit of coming to life after some outstanding achievement of medical research' •'XTOW let me show you our worst cases first; they are generally the Indians who will not come for treatment in time." We entered a well-built bungalow ward, and there they were — "the butt-ends of human beings," as R. L. S. described them —with their ulcers mercifully dressed mnd their truncated limbs wrapped up. Only their coarsened features were visible. We emerged again into the fresh air. "Leprosy is completely curable." Joseph's bright glance rested on me, searching for incredulity. "If a case comes in early enough and stays long enough I can cure him, usually in about four years or so." The tragedy was that a patient, especially among the ■ more impulsive Burmaris, would grow weary of the apparent lack of improvement and

leave the colony; " Perhaps some years ( later he would return Wellnigh unrecognisable. I saw one distressing example - of this in a small boy whose mother had grown impatient and taken him home; about a year later she returned him ln horror. We moved slowly round the estate,; stopping here to see young children in the prpcess of a cure, observing there a tell-tale patch of light-coloured skin which is often the earliest warning of one type of the disease. Most of the tamatea were busy about some task; planting, weaving, erecting machlnery or a new building* They seemed for the most part contented at their work, or was it an Oriental resignation to. fate? There was the recreatjon-room with a pingpong table they had built themselves. "DY now I had grown, in part, adapted to my environment, and it was not until I had returned to a normal mode of life that the Incongruity of two lepers playing ping-pong was borne in upon me. Joseph showed me a stage which they had built, and, what is more, they had performed thereon a Burmese version of 'The Merchant of Venice." I wondered if a kindly producer had scored through the Moorish suitor's speech "Mislike me not for my complexion." We crossed over to the women's reser- ; vation; here were inmates of all ages and at all stages of the disease — old women, Jioarse and sightless, without hope of cure, without occupation, merejy wqit- 1 ing for that ultimate dissolution, which . was to be their release. Here, too, were young girls cheerfully working at baskets ' and weaving, showing but the earliest i stigmata of leprosy; one in particular I noticed whose face was of fairer complexion than her companions*. This wps not of racial origin, Joseph • told me, it was the leprous area of skin • involving the whole face. Perhaps the Biblical phrase "a leper as white as snow" is not a misdiagnosis, as some authorities would have. AND suddenly I saw a Sister of Mercy, : dressed in white, bending over a leper and tending the wounds with a wonderful serenity of countenance, and I felt like a man coming into strong sunlight from a dark room, stumbling, and dazzled by the unexpected radiance Joseph told me that Captain R had brought the sisters a supply of rubber gloves to use, hoping to lessiesn the risk of infection. On his next visit hestill found them working barehanded. In answer to his bellowing remonstrances they said that they preferred to work without gloves else their patients* feelings would be hurt. I went back to the car where my companion was awaiting me. We took our leave of Joseph and started back to the familiar world outside, with its trams . and rickshaws, shops, hotels, and clubs - — a world unheeding and mainly ignorant of the rare beauty and steadfast courage that flowered ln these grim surroundings, making of such a colony a veritable oasis. After the experience of that early morning it was in strangely chastened mood that I broke my fast.