Perry, aged of 101

In 1884 a leprosarium was established at Carville, Louisiana, in the United States. Today, it continues to house a number of people who once had the disease. On October 2nd, Foundation Chairman Yohei Sasakawa visited the facility and found that discrimination against people who have had leprosy still exists in the United States. Officials there expressed the concern that it is essential to raise awareness about the true nature of leprosy.

A view of the facilities at Carville

Carville was officially closed in 1999. Previous to that, in the more than 100 years of its operations, countless leprosy patients from around the country were isolated and received treatment there. Its largest population was in the 1940's, when it was home to 450 patients. Today, most of Carville is used as a military facility, but parts of it have been left for the thirteen recovered people who have no other place to go. Their average age is seventy-nine.

Carville's Cemetary

As Sasakawa was touring the facility under the guidance of Dr. James L. Krahenbuhl, project director with the National Hansen’s Disease Program, he met an old man sitting in a wheelchair. Chairman Sasakawa asked the man his age. He answered proudly, "My age? I am 101 years old." Sasakawa then learned that he was speaking to Perry, the facility's oldest resident. Perry had moved to California as a laborer when he was eighteen years old, and was diagnosed with leprosy while he was working at an apple orchard. He went to live at Carville in 1936 at the age of twenty-eight. Chairman Sasakawa said to him, "You look like you are only 80 years old. Why are you so cheerful?" Perry laughed, "I spend my time singing Frank Sinatra songs and playing the guitar. Of course, I also avoid alcohol and tobacco."

Museum staffers Pete (right) and Vicky

Another man, Pete, is eighty-one and has lived for fifty-eight years in the facility. Since the National Hansen's Disease Museum was established there in 1996, he has worked as a museum guide. He said "I like working here and earning a salary."

The museum provides visitors with a record of Carville’s history. There, one can learn that the facility was once surrounded by a barbed wire fence, that the patients were forced to change their names, were kept prisoner there, and were even forbidden to use the facility’s pool until 1990. On record too is the extremity of the official discrimination that they had face. For example, in the United States, people with leprosy were not given the right to vote until 1945, and were even legally prohibited from having children until 1960.

Dr. Krahenbuhl (left) and Chairman Sasakawa

According to Dr. Krahenbuhl, the discrimination remains. As an example, he cited a high school student’s internet-based explanation of leprosy that used images of patients with deformed faces and limbs. Many who saw this were lead to believe that leprosy is a horrible disease. Worse, he told of the case of a doctor who diagnosed a patient with leprosy, and spread panic by announcing to the media, "Hansen's disease patients have been found. The area is in a crisis!" This was nothing more than a lack of study on the doctor’s part. Dr. Krahenbuhl said, "There is an urgent need to educate the public and ensure that doctors to have a correct understanding of leprosy." Chairman Sasakawa expressed his surprise at Dr. Krahenbuhl’s words, saying, "Though leprosy in the United States has been under control before 1990, it is apparent that discrimination is still exists."