NURSED A LEPER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2678, 3 January 1924, Page 4

NURSED A LEPER.

EX-MATRON’S MARTYRDOM

CONTRACTS DREAD DISEASE.

The pathetic story of a woman who now lives in isolation in a build-

ing near the Wooroloo (Western Australia) Sanatorium, and who ] is condemned to a slow death by leprosy, has just been revealed. t Some years ago the woman was matron in a hospital at Broome, and during her period of service there many men, representing many nations, passed through her hands. In the course of time she came south, and developed a disease which doctors did not feel disposed to diagnose in its early stages. Her daughter had married ar medical man, under whose care she remained in a country town for some time, and then, being in a great state of mental anxiety regarding the nature of the disease, she went to Perth and saw the Commissioner of Public Health. The Commissioner told her she was suffering from one of two dread diseases, and as far ns. he could say at the moment, he believed it was leprosy. She was admitted to the hospital, and in the course of a few days the dread sentence of slow death from the terrible malady was made known to her. “She took the news like a champion,” said the Health Commissioner, and she is now living a lonely life in the place set apart for lepers at Wooroloo. So far as could be learned by the health authorities, the woman while at Broome nursed n leper, and a search of the records was made to ascertain whethei it was possible any leper may have passed through the institution there without the knowledge of the department. It is now believed that such a man, an aboriginal, was treated at the hospital and was nursed bv the matron. ’ The native died subsequently and (he woman, who in the outpost ofservice nursed him in the days of his affliction and contracted the disease, is now left to end her days a leper. _