MELBOURNE GOSSIP.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2683, 8 June 1889, Page 6 (Supplement)

MELBOURNE GOSSIP.

TWO HOURS IN A LEPER ASYLUM. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) So much is being said just now about leprosy, and the possibility of its sweeping as a scourge over this fair continent, that in the preseut dearth of news I cannot do better than fill this letter with a few facts about the disease. What I know about it has not been gathered from books, and what I have to say are not mere efforts of fancy. The disease, it is true when advanced to its latest stages presents humanity in a form more loathsome than the mind of a man can conceive ; but for all that Ino more believe that the death of Father Damien is due to leprosy, contracted as ordinary contagious diseases are contracted, than I believo that tho pen which traces these words in held by a leprous hand. That Father Damien died of leprosy is a fact without doubt; but that tho disease was contracted from breathing tho same atmosphere as tho lepers, or that it was communicated to him in tho mauner in which small-pox, typhus fever, _or other contagious diseases are communicated, is a theory that rosts upon a foundation no moro substantial than a shadow. If the reader is cot too sensitive, let us look in upon ono of the saddest scones which the human mind can conceive; and, although tho senses may rise up in revolt at what we see, tho heart that can withhold its pity is not human. Leaving Port Louis by the road which loads to the scenes made classic by Bcrnardin St. Pierre, in his story of Paul and Virginia, we come, at the end of a mile and a half to St. Lazare—a hospital for lepers. About forty years ago God put into the heart of a good woman the resolve to bequeath her property —a pretty house and some thirty acres of groundto be used for all time as an asylum in which lepers might find a refuge when shunned by healthy and robust humanity. Two other good and noble-minded women—l, a Protestant, say it—two noble-minded women, Sisters of Charity; undertook to reside there, and to receive, tend, and feed, as many of those unfortunate outcasts as the place would hold and they could maintain. They begged from door to door; donations were sent to them, and they not only were able to feed the homeless, but they were able also to build, one at a time, cottage after cottage, and ward afterward, until at the time when I visited the place, four years ago, the establishment bad assumed the dimensions of a little village. And this is the place to which the reader's company is invited. Here we are, and very fortunately the doctor has just arrived too, Ho is a Frenchman by descent, an Englishman by birth—Dr. Poupinel de Vallancc— a man who lives eighteen miles away, but who, for the last five and twenty years, has had medical charge of this place, visiting it twice a week, and who has not only not demanded, but who has positively refused, any remuneration for his services.

The first thing that strikes us upon entering the little settlement is the profusion of flowers which are growing everywhere. The place is absolutely resplendent with the gorgeous flora of Mauritius). There is not the least symmetry or design about the flower beds—if the irregular patches, picturesque to the verge of eccentricity, can be called flower-beds. But there ia a profusion of bloom, abundant evidences of loving care, taste in the arrangement and blending of colour, which make np a sum total of almost overwhelming heartache when one perceives that the planting and tending is done by what? By men and by woman who think and who feel as we do; who may love and who doubtless havo loved, as we havo loved and still do love; but who have now become so repellent aud so loathsome as to bo in some instances scarcely recognisable as our own species. Shut out in a measure from human sympathy, debarred from all social intercourse, unloved, with not one single gleam of hope to illumine their forlorn existence ; shunned even by tho children of the gutter, and it sec.ll3 that all their care, all tho love and tenderness of which they are susceptible, are lavished upon their flowers. For physical exertion in even its mildest form is not exacted from any of them.

The fact that S!\ Laziro is composed of numerous buildings and separate wards has been already mentioned. There nro detached cottages, similar to thoso of Yarra Bend, for the more decent lepers. The association wards again are classified according to the inore or less advanced stages of tho disease. In its milder form leprosy can only be detected by an experienced eve, and is distinguishable only by a peculiar pallor of the skin. In others again it shows itself in whito patches upon the skin. Every leper does not necessarily die from tho disease. Perhaps not fifty per cent, do so. But, on tho other hand, no one has over been known to be cured. Of course, the disease is far more virulent in some than in others. It may have been in tho blood of tho family for a greater number of generations, and tho blood has become absolutely poisoned. In theso wards wc see it in all its stages. Here is a person whose skin appears to be covered with minuto scales—repulsive to look upon. Here is another, whose finger tips aro gradually wasting away, and the toes, as we s-je, aro in the same condition. This is a worse case—the hideous beginning of a loathsome and fearful end. In the next ward wr. com<s to cases still further advanced. The fingers and toes have Bone, and a part of tho hands and feet. There are no wound.-* ; the members have .-imply wasted away—nails, skin, II !<li, hones. As for blood one can hardly '■.niecive such a thing to bo in the flesh. Pursuing our investigations wo find people whoso kands havo quite disappeared. The arms terminate in two stumps at the wrists. If the snbject lives long enough his arms will terminate at tho elbows. Similarly the feet have gone, and the legs are disappearing from the ankle upwards. Such cases as these are bad enough, but there are some still worse. In some subjects the lips or nose, or both, have been attacked ; the face has partially gone. There is a cavern forming in the head, and to look at it tills the beholder with shrinking, shuddering horror ; the heart grows sick and faint; and one becomes aware, of what has for some time been creeping over the senses, an indescribable smell in the atmosphere. It is not an eilluvia that offensively asserts itself. It is a thick, heavy, sickening smell—not tho charnel-house smell of decaying human remains. It is the smell of living humanity being gradually eaten away by leprosy. Now, if leprosy were contagious, in the usually accepted sense of the term, this is just the place in which infection would seize upon the vitals of a healthy person. Leprosy is common, very common, in Mauritius, and has been so for a century, at least. Moreover, for forty years, at least, leprosy, in its worst aspects, has been foeussed at St. Lazarc, and tho very boards of the establishment have become saturated with it. The establishment has been in charge of ladies who have lived there, and who havo been in daily and hourly contact with the inmates, for a generation at least. There is Dr. Poupinel de Vallance, who had attended them for a liko period. There are others who are constantly going in and out. Yet none of theso have caught the infection, and they would simply laugh at any ono who told them they were in danger of doing so. Moro than this; I havo said that there if. not a case on record in which ii healthy person has become leprous from tho effccts of contact with lepers. There was a case at Seychelles—another leprous ceutre —in which a Dr. Miecblejohn been mo a leper. He had been in attendance at the leper establishment at (Jurieiiso, and ho contracted tho malady. A u ollininl investigation followed, and it \v;i* Hiidor.ttood that iuflnenocs easily explainable had buL-n at work in his case.

Lopro-iy, bt; it understood, is not exclusively coufiund to poor pooplo. It assails rifiji in id poor alike. It is not uncommon

to see a healthy person marry into a leprous family. That person invariably escapes. The children, however, are not always bo fortunate. In a word, leprosy is hereditary. If you ask me how it is first dovelopod iu healthy families, I should say show me tlio healthy family in which it is developed. The blood must bo prepared to receive it. In countries where every kind of meat is cooked in lard—lard obtained from vilely fed, and perhaps leprous, pigs: countries in which families intermarry generation after generation ; countries in which the laws of sanitation are neither obsorved nor even understood. Show me one of these countries and you will not surprise me if you also show me families in which leprosy has fastened itself. If yon ask me how the disease may bo propagated, I will tell yoa—by innoculation. Arm to ariu vaccination from an unsuspected leper to a healthy child is the surest method I know of. Father Damien may have been innoculated without knowing it. fie may have incautiously suffered an uncovered Bore upon one of his own hands to come into contact with a bad case of leprosy. That would explain the whole mystery.