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MUSEUM EXHIBIT WILL CLOSE AS OF FEBRUARY 27, 2009
In 1894, seven residents of a Louisiana “pest house” began a journey up the Mississippi River, to an abandoned plantation south of Baton Rouge, near a town called Carville.
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Arrival of the first patients.
By Johnny P. Harmon. Painted
in 1994 during the hospital’s
centennial year. | That plantation would become a refuge for leprosy patients from all over the world. U.S. law required citizens diagnosed with leprosy be quarantined at Carville.In its early years,Carville was more prison than hospital. Families, horrified by the stigma of leprosy, left their infected relatives at the front gate. Patients routinely changed their names to protect their families. In 1921, the U.S. Public Health Service took over the hospital from the state of Louisiana, and what was known as Marine Hospital #66 became the country’s only national leprosarium.
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Mold of a Hansen’s
disease patient’s hand
with shortened digits.
The missing length is due
to chronic infections caused
by injuries to the insensitive
hand. | As the decades passed, greater understanding about leprosy emerged from studies at Carville. Researchers partnered with the Daughters of Charity and patients to develop a therapy which, years later, became Carville’s gift to the world: the multi-drug regimen many call a cure for leprosy, now also known as Hansen’s disease.
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Modified utensil.
Patients with crippled hands
used modified utensils.
Physical therapists shaped
and augmented regular silver-
ware, giving patients
independence at the table. | As Carville evolved from leprosarium to hospital, and eventually, a home for patients who lived their entire lives there, the plantation fostered an incredible sense of community. This exhibit, and the recent PBS documentary of the same name, highlights a few of the amazing stories and characters that vividly tell the story of this unique place.
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| Christmas at Carville, 1951. | Patients diagnosed with Hansen’s disease today are not quarantined. When correctly diagnosed and treated, they are able to lead normal lives, free of disfigurement. Centuries-old stigmas are at last beginning to fade. The successful development of therapies for Hansen’s disease has also revolutionized treatments for complications due to diabetes, including therapies to prevent foot ulcers that can lead to amputation for diabetic patients.
Because of what happened at Carville, the world will never again be the same.
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