Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1888 — Leprosy in Louisiana. [ARTICLE]

Leprosy in Louisiana.

Mr. Ely and thejoriest lodged in th* house of one of the petits habitants. In the evening, when we were alone, the subject of leprosy came up. “We hear at the North,” said Mi Ely, “vague accounts of the Terre des Lepreux, which is said to be some where in Louisiana. "What truth i there in them?” “They are no doubt greatly exagg' ated,” said Father Nedaud. “A spurious leprosy, elephantiasis, was so common among the negroes under the Spanish domination that Governor Miro founded a hospital for lepers near New-Orleans, on the Bayou St. John. It has been gone these many years, and Lepers’ Land is now built up with pretty houses. It was in the suburb Treme. ”

“The disease is extinct, then?” “There were some cases of genuine Asiatic leprosy near Abbeville, in this parish, about twenty years ago. An old creole lady was the first. Her father doubtless brought the terrible taint in his blood from France. When the white scales .appeared in her face her husband and family fled from her. There was a young girl, daughter of M’sieu Dubois, who went to her and nursed her alone during the three years in which she fought with death. Another of God’s servants, m’sieu! Four of this old woman’s children, who deserted her, became lepers. The young girl who had nursed her, after she died married a young fermier, and lived happily in her little cabin with her husband and pretty baby. But one day a shining white spot appeared on her forehead. That was the end.” “She died?”

“M’sieu, after four years. There is no cure. It surely does not matter to her now by what road God called her to Him. There have been since then no lepers in this parish except in' these tainted families. The real Terre des Lepreux in Louisiana is now on the lower Lafourche, below Harang’s Canal. The bayou there is turbid and foul; it flows through malarious swamps lower than itself. The creole planters there are honest and temperate folk, but they are wretchedly poor. They raise only rice, and live on it- and fish. The wet rice fields c»me up to the very doors of their cabins. The leprosy which certain families among them have inherited is developed by these conditions. Five years ago Professor Joseph Jones, President of the State Board of Health, went himself with his son to explore the cypress swamps and lagoons of the lower Lafourche. M’sieu, it is the region of the shadow of death. He found many poor lepers hiding there. They were as dead men who walk and talk. They could handle burning coals; they felt no longer cold nor heat nor pain. Their bodies were as corpses. One man lived alone in a hut, thatched with palmettoes, which he had built for himself, eating only the rice which he had planted. No man nor woman had come near him for years. The Terre des Lepreux extends as far as Cheniere Caminada, where the bayou empties into the Gulf.”

Mr. Ely remained silent, though a torrent of angry queries rushed to his lips. Why was nothing done to mitigate the horrors of such a life-ia-death? How could this priest, a man of God, so calmly discuss these poor accursed creatures from hfs safe, comfortable point of vantage, jogging on his easygoing mare from one farm to another ? He bade him presently a rather curt good-night, and went to the loft where he was to sleep. When he came down in the morning, Pere Nedaud had gone. “M’sieu,” said his smiling host, “le pere has lef’ you bon-matin,” waving his hand to the black figure passing southward far across the prairie. “Where is his charge now?” “M’sieu—” Gaspard paused a moment. “In hell, I think. It is near Cheniere Caminada, in la Terre des Lepreux.” Mr. Ely walked away from him, and paced up and down the levee for a long ) time. “God forgive me!” he muttered to himself.— Rebecca Harding Davis, in Harper’s Magazine.