The Catholic World, Vol. 25, April 1877 to September 1877

by Various

“MAY-FLOWERS.”

Dear Mother, on our country’s breast—

Our country that is thine—

Our poets place as scutcheon flower

Small argent stars that shine

With pallid light when scarcely wake

The leaf-buds from their sleep,

When, nursing summer’s waiting bloom,

The storm-stained leaves lie deep.

Fair, little stars that faintly gleam

Like planets sunset-dimmed,

The dearer for their glory scant

On barren heavens limned.

Pale May-flowers, whose stainless cheek

Seems born of winter snow—

One rosy drop of living blood

Flushing the veins below.

Whose faint-breathed perfume seems to rise

Like prayer of anchorite,

The heart that pours its incense forth

Low hidden from our sight;

Whose sweetness seems like nimbus pale

Crowning some saintly head,

The light of self-forgotten life

In holy odor shed.

Kind Mother, see, these little flowers

Our land is given to wear,

When still the forest arches stand

Of leafy tracery bare;

When still the heavens’ softened blue

Grows dim with wind-swept snow,

And lonely-seeming Phœbe chants

Disconsolate and low.

This precious bloom bears thy dear name—

Though given unaware—

And in its gentle life we trace

The gleam of thine more fair.

In France’s thoughtful land they give

Bright flowers to be thine eyes,

Within their blue forget-me-nots

Thy glance’s calmness lies.

Upon our matin blossom rests

No depth of peaceful blue,

Yet breaks the rosy dawn of love

Its cheek’s pure whiteness through.

Amid the darkened leaves it lies

In blest humility,

A lowly handmaid of the Lord,

Unstained of earth, like thee—

A hidden life e’er pouring forth

An offering pure of prayer;

The sweet unconsciousness of grace

Soft’ning the rude, bleak air.

The blood-stained heart the sword hath pierced

The spotless breast within,

The quiet shining on a world

Bitter and drear with sin.

A crown of stars that perfects all

With heaven-won aureole—

Let France’s blossom claim thine eyes,

Claim ours thy spotless soul;

Whose gracious blessing ever rest

On this broad land of ours,

That not in vain her poets’ shield

Be quartered with May-flowers.

THE LEPERS OF TRACADIE.[^[28]]

“Ah! little think the gay, licentious crowd,

Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround—

Ah! little think they, while they dance along,

How many pine! how many drink the cup

Of baleful grief! how many shake

With all the fiercer tortures of the mind!”

—Thomson’s Seasons.

“In a rage, I returned to my dwelling-place, crying aloud: 'Woe unto thee, leper! Woe unto thee!' And as if the whole world united against me, I heard the echo through the ruins of the Château de Bramafan repeat distinctly: 'Woe unto thee!' I stood motionless with horror on the threshold of the tower, listening to the faint tones again and again repeated from the overhanging mountains: 'Woe unto thee!'”

—Xavier de Maistre.

On the low and miry land forming the borders of the county of Gloucester in New Brunswick, fifty miles from Miramichi and twenty-five south of Caraquet, between a narrow river and the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, stands a little village. The situation it occupies is dreary and sad to a degree. On one side moans the gray sea, on whose dull and turbid waters rarely is seen a sail. On the other stretches a long, low line of coast, dotted at intervals by the huts of the fishermen. The whole landscape is painfully monotonous, desolate, and mournful. The cottages are mean in the extreme, while the simple church is without architectural merit. Afar off frowns forbiddingly a large building shut in by high walls. In this melancholy spot the passing traveller says to himself: “Is this place accursed alike by God and man?”

Accursed, alas! it has indeed been by despairing lips and hearts; for the building is the lazaretto of Tracadie. Before the year 1798 no register was kept of baptisms, marriages, or burials in the parish. Since that date, however, and up to 1842, Tracadie was under the care of the curés of Caraquet, a neighboring parish.

On the 24th of October, 1842, arrived the first resident priest, M. François Xavier Stanislas Lafrance, who remained there until January, 1852. M. Lafrance has since died. At Tracadie he was succeeded by the present curé, M. l’Abbé Ferdinand Gauvreau,[^[29]] with whose name the history of these poor lepers must always be interwoven.

Probably the most terrible chastisement inflicted on a guilty people is that known as leprosy. In ancient times it was only too well known, for it was then more frequent than in our day. It made such fearful ravages in certain parts of the world that its very name was whispered in accents of horror and dread.

From time immemorial has this scourge been looked upon as utterly distinct from all other diseases; more virulent in its effects; more insidious in its approaches, and above all by reason of the frightful manner in which it distorts and disfigures its victims.

Leprosy has probably been known from the creation of the world. Nothing in history leads us to reject this idea, and, indeed, many interpreters who have exercised their talent on certain obscure passages of Holy Writ have found no better way of defining the terrible sign with which God marked the fratricide Cain than by supposing it to be leprosy. The alarm that has always been felt in regard to this most loathsome disease arises not alone from its hideous results, but also from the conviction that has always existed as to the absolute hopelessness of cure.

Before the time of Moses leprosy was well known. The first mention made of it in Holy Writ is in the fourth chapter of Exodus. God, having chosen Moses to deliver the Hebrews from the tyranny of the Egyptians, orders him to present himself before his afflicted people and to announce himself to them as their deliverer. Moses objected, saying: “They will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice; for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee!” Then the Lord, to convince Moses of his divine mission, said unto him, “Put now thine hand into thy bosom,” and he put his hand into his bosom; and when he took it out, behold his hand full of leprosy, white as snow—“instar nevis.”

Here, then, was leprosy easy to recognize, since it had the whiteness of snow. Let us not forget this peculiar feature, for we shall see it again later.

From this incident we see clearly that the disease was by no means unknown to Moses, because on seeing his hand he said: “Leprosam instar nevis.” Therefore we have a right to believe that the disease existed before Moses. To the support of this opinion Dom Calmet, in his Biblical Dictionary, cites Manetho the Egyptian, Lysimarchus, Appian, Tacitus, and Justin, who have advanced the idea that the Jews went out from Egypt on account of the leprosy. Each one of these historians narrates the events in his own fashion, but all agree that the Hebrews who left Egypt were attacked by leprosy.

Not only does leprosy fasten on mankind, but it clings to clothing and to the stone walls of houses. It is to be presumed, however, that the leprosy brought by the Israelites out of Egypt was not of this malignant type; for Moses, by the order of God, takes pains to mention another and more virulent kind known in the land of Chanaan, the promised land of the Israelites.

In Leviticus, chapter xiii., we find the following: “If there be a spot, greenish or reddish, in the garment, of wool or of skin, the garment must be shown to the priest; and the priest shall look on the plague, and shut it up for seven days; and if at the end of the time the spots have spread, the priest will burn the garment, for it is a fretting leprosy. If the priest find, however, that the spots have not spread, he shall order the garment to be washed; and, behold, if the plague have not changed his color, and be not spread, it is unclean: thou shalt burn it in the fire.”

As to the suspected taint of leprosy in their houses, let us see their method of proceeding: “When you be come into the land of Chanaan, if you think there be leprosy in the house, he that owneth the house shall go to the priest, who shall order the house to be emptied. If the priest finds in the walls hollow streaks, greenish or reddish, he shall shut the house for seven days. The priest shall come again the seventh day, and shall look; and if the plague be spread, the stones shall be taken away, and cast into an unclean place without the city. Then the rest of the house shall be scraped within and without, and they shall pour the dust without the city, and they shall take other stones and put them in the place of these, and other mortar to plaster the house.

“And if the plague come again, and break out in the house, it is a fretting leprosy, and the house is unclean and shall be destroyed.”

Thus it is seen that the leprosy known to the ancients—this lamentable scourge, “this eldest daughter of death”—attacked in its fury not man alone, but his clothing and the very walls of his house. The primary cause of an evil so malignant and so wide-spread must for ever remain a mystery. The learned Dom Calmet, as commentator of the Bible rather than as a physician, offers a theory in his notes on Leviticus. He maintains that the disease is caused by a multitude of minute worms. These parasites glide between skin and flesh, gnawing the epidermis and the cuticle, and then the nerves, producing, in short, all the symptoms that are remarked in the beginning, the progress, and the end of leprosy. Dom Calmet concludes by saying that “venereal diseases are but forms of leprosy which were only too well known to the ancients.” In this century leprosy still exists in some portions of Italy and in Norway to a very considerable extent, according to the reports of Drs. Danielson and Boëk. It is still to be met with in Turkey in the village of Looschori—the ancient Mytilene of the Ægean Sea—in the Indian Archipelago, on the coast of Africa, and in the West Indies. I myself have seen it in Jerusalem and at Naplouse, ancient Samaria; at Damascus also, where there is a lazaretto very poorly supported by public charity. To Mr. Charles A. Dana, one of the editors of the New American Cyclopædia, the maladie de Tracadie is not unknown; for he says that leprosy exists in Canada and in other portions of America.

But to return to the Scriptures: Moses is not the only one of the inspired writers who speaks of leprosy, and more than once our blessed Lord, on his journeys through Judea, exercised his charity and showed his goodness by curing lepers who threw themselves at his feet, entreating mercy. Job was struck by the hand of God with this scourge, and has described it with marvellous beauty and pathos. He was forsaken by his wife and his friends in his humiliation and suffering; they shrank from him, saying that he must have committed some fearful crime to have drawn upon himself so heavy a chastisement. A similar horror of this disease existed among all nations. In Pérsia no citizen infected by it could enter a village or have any intercourse with his fellow-creatures, while a stranger was driven pitilessly forth into the desert (Herod., Clio).

Æschines, giving an account of his sea voyage, states that, the ship putting into Delos, they found the inhabitants suffering from leprosy, and the travellers hurried away in fear and trembling, lest they themselves should fall victims.

In Egypt Pliny[^[30]] says that when this evil attacked kings, it was most unfortunate for their people; for to cure them baths of warm human blood were believed to be efficacious.

In later days we find that lepers have been the victims of most unjust and cruel laws among almost all nations. Thus, among the Lombards, in 643, one law ordered not only that lepers should be confined to isolated localities, but declared them also civilly dead, deprived them of their property, and confided them to the charity of the public. Several provinces in France adopted this law with some qualifications. In certain localities even the posterity of lepers were excluded—as at Calais—from all rights of citizenship, and in 757 an ordinance of Pepin le Bref permitted divorce between a healthy wife and leprous husband, or a healthy husband and leprous wife. Charlemagne augmented the severity of laws already so hard. He ordered lepers to live apart, permitted them no social intercourse whatever, and finally, as their crowning misery, these unfortunates saw themselves thrust on one side by the church itself from communion with the faithful.

At the time of the separation of the lepers from family, home, and friends, the church pronounced over them the prayers for the dead. Masses were said for the repose of their souls, and, to complete the mournful illusion, a handful of earth was thrown upon their bodies. They were forbidden to enter any church or any place where food was prepared, nor could they dip their hands in a running stream, nor accept food or anything handed them, save with a fork or the end of a stick. They were compelled, moreover, to wear a particular costume that could be seen and recognized from afar off, and, under threats of severe penalties for disobedience, were ordered to ring a little bell to announce their coming. More recently, in France, lepers herded together, in secluded places, which were called léproseries. In the year 1244 there were throughout all Christendom 19,000 of these léproseries, and in France alone 2,000.

There these poor wretched creatures passed their desolate lives, separated from the outside world, without occupation or interest, save that of watching the slow but sure progress of their companions toward the inevitable and horrible death that was impending.

In the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, says Mgr. Gaume, leprosy extended its ravages over a large part of the world. The pestilence attacked suddenly all parts of the body at once, drying it up, as it were; and, like the plague, leprosy was unquestionably most contagious. To receive the infection it was but necessary to touch the clothes or the furniture, or even to breathe the tainted air; consequently, every one fled in dismay at the sight of a leper. They were driven from the vicinity of towns, and they were seen from afar wandering over the fields and hillsides like living corpses, while at a distance they were compelled to signal their approach by a rattle or bell. Abandoned by the whole world, and a prey to horrible sufferings, they called on death to deliver them.

The King of France, anxious to protect his subjects from exposure to this disease, formed a complete code of laws for lepers. “Every person,” said M. Deseimeris in his Medical Dictionary, “who is suspected of leprosy must submit to a thorough examination by a surgeon. The suspicion confirmed, a magistrate takes possession of the individual to dispose of him according to law. If he be a stranger, he must be sent at once to the place of his birth, bestowing first upon him, however, the poor gifts of a hat, a gray mantle, a beggar’s wallet, and a small keg. The poor creature, on arriving at his native village, must carefully avoid all contact with his fellow-creatures.” Even the church rejects him. Each town or village was compelled to build for his reception a small wooden house on four piles, and, after the death of its inmate, the house, with all that was in it, was consigned to the flames.

As the number of lepers was constantly increasing, the erection of so many of these small tenements became a source of great expense. It was therefore finally decided to unite them under one roof, and give them the name of a léproserie. In this way their support became less onerous, while their seclusion was far greater, and their diet and medical treatment was easier of regulation.

Louis VIII. published in 1226 a code of special laws for the government of léproseries. These laws were intolerably severe. A leper once incarcerated within the walls of a lazaretto incurred the penalty of death if he passed over the threshold again; scaffolds were erected where they could be seen from the hospital, thus keeping this fact ever in the remembrance and before the eyes of the miserable inmates.

I have recounted these details to demonstrate the utter horror with which leprosy was regarded. It must not be supposed that only the ignorant and superstitious were overwhelmed by foolish dread, or that it was an idle prejudice, a relic of barbarism; for in the nineteenth century we witness the same horror, and here on our own shores encounter the same rigorous legislation. We should also find the lepers as uncared for, as shunned and neglected, as they were of old, were it not for the Catholic Church, which, with its customary zeal in all labors of charity and mercy, aroused in the hearts of a humble priest and a few weak nuns the wish and determination to consecrate their lives to the service of this most miserable class of their fellow-creatures.

The first settlements on the Miramichi River were made after the treaty of Utrecht in 1718 by the subjects of France—Basques, Bretons, and Normans. Under the administration of Cardinal Fleury stringent measures were taken to encourage and protect these colonies. After a time, when their prosperity seemed secure, a certain Pierre Beauhair was sent from France as intendant to rule and arrange matters for the French government. He erected a small villa on a point of land that since his death bears his name, at the mouth of the northwestern branch of the Miramichi River. The island opposite l’Ile Beauhair was strongly defended, and tradition states that the intendant built within the walls of the fort a foundry for cannon, and other buildings for the manufacture of munitions of war.

During the summer of 1757 the colony on the Miramichi suffered much from the war between France and England, which sadly interrupted their traffic in fish and furs. Consequently, the following winter was one of great suffering, and many of the colonists died of hunger. Two transport ships, laden with provision and supplies of all kinds, were sent out by the French government in 1758, but both vessels were captured by the English fleet then assisting at the siege of Louisburg.

While these colonies were enduring suspense and starvation a French vessel, called the Indienne, from Morlaix, was wrecked at the mouth of the Miramichi near the “Baie des Vents”—a name now corrupted into “Baie du Vin.” Tradition states that this ship, before coming to America, had traded in the Levant, and that a large number of bales of old clothes had been taken on board at Smyrna. The clothes were strewn upon the beach after the vessel went to pieces, were seized by the inhabitants, dried, and afterwards worn. However this may be, it is certain that from that date arose a most terrible pestilence among the Canadians, who were already decimated by famine. The first victim of this malady was M. de Beauhair, and he, with eight hundred others, it is said, were buried at Point Beauhair. The survivors abandoned Miramichi and fled, some to l’Ile Saint-Jean—now Prince Edward’s Island—and the greater number settled along the western coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where they formed scattered hamlets under the names of Niguaweck, Tracadie, and Pokemouche, combined in one parish—that of Caraquet.

For eighty years, although it was known that isolated instances of leprosy existed in the different colonies, they attracted little or no public attention up to 1817, when a woman named Ursule Laudry died of the disease.

An account written by one of the nuns of l’Hôtel Dieu attributes a somewhat different origin to this scourge. This good sister writes that the disease was carried to New Brunswick in 1758 by a ship from the Levant; the vessel having made the port late in the autumn, the crew were paid off and dispersed, many seeking a temporary home in Caraquet. Unfortunately, this crew was afflicted by a malady that was unsuspected by any one. The colonists were kind to the sailors; the women washed their clothes and in this way contracted the disease, which was transmitted from one to another and from father to son, and in time acquired its peculiar features. Hamilton Gordon, the Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick in 1862, has assigned a similar origin to the malady in an interesting pamphlet entitled Wilderness Journeys in New Brunswick in 1862-3.

“A vague and uncertain tradition exists,” he says, “that somewhere about a hundred years ago a French vessel was wrecked on the coast of Gloucester or Northumberland, and that among the crew were some sailors from Marseilles, who in the Levant had contracted the hideous leprosy of the East, the veritable elephantiasis Græcorum; however this may be, it is beyond all question that for many years a part of the French population of these two counties has been sorely afflicted by this mysterious disease, or by one that closely resembles it, and which may be, indeed, the form of leprosy so well known on the coast of Norway.”

“It is difficult,” says in his turn M. Gauvreau, curé of Tracadie and chaplain of the lazaretto, in a letter published in the Journal de Montreal, November 30, 1859—“it is difficult to persuade one’s self that this malady could be the spontaneous generation of the locality where it now exists. The geographical position of Tracadie is on the sea-coast, with the fresh currents of a river close at hand, the waters of which are salt for eight or nine miles above the mouth. The soil in some portions is sandy, in others clayey; in the vicinity are no marshes, no stagnant water, consequently no injurious malaria. These facts seem to justify the opinion which I have long held, and which as yet I see no reason to change, that the poisonous virus was not the growth of this spot, but was brought here by some traveller.”

These traditions are, in the main, probably correct as to the origin of the scourge in this Canadian village. The inhabitants of other villages than Tracadie subsist almost entirely on fish, are equally poor, equally ill-fed and insufficiently clothed, living in the same damp and foggy atmosphere; but it is only in Tracadie or its vicinity that a leper is to be seen. The inhabitants of Labrador and Newfoundland eat fish almost exclusively, and live amid similar climatic conditions, paying no more enlightened attention to hygienic laws, and yet the “maladie de Tracadie” does not attack or decimate them.

From the date of the introduction of this disease into the village it increased slowly but steadily until 1817, when certain precautions began to be taken; but not until 1844 did the authorities try any active precautions. In that year a medical board was organized, who made a report of their investigations to the government, and later in the same year an act of the Provincial Legislature was passed, renewed and amended in 1850. It authorized the lieutenant-governor to establish a health committee. This committee recommended the erection of a lazaretto on l’Ile de Sheldrake, an isolated spot in the middle of the Miramichi River eighteen miles above Chatham. “Whoever was found to be unquestionably tainted by the disease,” says the article, “must be torn from his family, using force if needful. The husband must be taken from his wife, the mother from her children, the child from its parents, whenever the first symptom of leprosy declares itself. An eternal farewell to all they hold most dear must be said, and the poor creature is sent to the lazaretto. It often happens that a leper refuses to go quietly; he is then dragged by ropes like a beast to the shambles—for none is willing to lay a finger upon him. Often the unhappy beings are driven with blows to the very door of the lazaretto.” Things, of course, could not long remain in this brutal condition. The lepers, driven to desperation by their physical and mental sufferings, by a wild longing for the liberty denied them, and for the sight of their loved ones, sometimes effected their escape.

An attempt was finally made to ameliorate their condition, and in 1847 the lazaretto was removed to the spot where it now stands, about half a mile from the parish church of Tracadie. A large tract of land was here purchased by the government, and the present building was erected, surrounded by a wooden wall twenty feet high, set thick with nails to hinder the escape of the lepers. The windows of the lazaretto were barred heavily with iron, and thus added to the melancholy aspect of the building. The lepers, weary of the revolting resemblance to a prison, themselves tore most of the bars away, and, when the nuns arrived there they at once ordered the remainder to be removed.

In 1868 the nuns from the Hôtel Dieu of Montreal took possession of the lazaretto of Tracadie. For some few years a strong necessity had been felt for the reorganization of this institution. A wish was expressed that it could be placed under the care of the Hospital Nuns. I have now before me a letter from the Rt. Rev. James Rogers, Bishop of Chatham, in which is given an account, for the Conseil Central de la Propagation de la Foi at Paris, of the steps that had been taken up to December, 1866:

“Since my first visit to the establishment,” says the bishop, “I have always thought that it would be most desirable to place it under the care of the Sisters of the Hôtel Dieu, who would watch over the souls and the bodies of these sufferers, whose number varies from twenty to thirty. But so many great and pressing needs claimed my attention—while my resources were insufficient even for the alleviation of physical suffering, and also, perhaps, for the spiritual wants of certain souls—I was compelled to postpone my plans in regard to the lazaretto, until my diocese could satisfy the religious needs of its inhabitants by an increase of the number of priests, and by the erection of chapels in places where they had long and earnestly been demanded, and also by the establishment of schools for the Christian education of youth. Another obstacle to the immediate execution of my intention was the lukewarm approbation and co-operation of the government. The total lack of suitable lodging for the nuns, as well as the uncertainty whether the Protestant element which pervades our government and our legislature would be willing to grant us funds or permit us to make needful preparations for the sisters to take charge of the lazaretto—all conspired as hindrances to my desires.

“Last spring I petitioned the government, but political changes interfered, and no steps were taken until now. This is the reason why the worthy curé of Tracadie continues to be the only priest who administers the consolations of religion to that portion of his flock so bitterly afflicted.”

The steps taken by Bishop Rogers seem to have been singularly felicitous. He obtained from Bishop Bourget the assistance of the nuns of the Hôtel Dieu of Montreal, and the government appears to have regarded with favorable eyes this regeneration of the lazaretto, which produced in a very brief period of time the best possible results upon the patients. Abbé Gauvreau draws a sad picture of the state in which these poor creatures lived before the nuns went to their assistance. In a letter dated April 28, 1869, addressed to the mother-superior of the Hôtel Dieu of Montreal, he says:

“I am absolutely incapable of describing the state of abject misery in which our poor lepers passed their lives before the coming of the sisters. I can only say that from the hour of their transfer from l’Ile aux Bec-scies (Sheldrake) at the entrance of the river Miramichi, discord, revolt, and insubordination toward the government, divisions and quarrels among themselves, made the history of their daily lives. The walls rang with horrible blasphemies, and the hospital seemed like a den of thieves.”

The Board of Health spared nothing to make the lepers comfortable. Good food, and abundance of it, appropriate clothing, and careful medical attendance were liberally provided; but, in spite of these efforts, the hearts of these poor creatures were as diseased as their bodies. Some of them revolted against the summons of death, notwithstanding the constant exhortations of the chaplain, and even after their last communion clung strongly to the futile hope of life. Of this number was one who had been warned by the physician that his hours were numbered and that a priest should be summoned. His friends, and those of his relatives who were within the walls of the lazaretto, implored him to prepare for death. “Let me be!” he cried. “I know what I am about!”

About nine o’clock in the evening he begged his companions in misery not to watch at his bedside, and, believing himself able to drive away Death, who was hurrying toward him with rapid strides, insisted on playing a game of cards. The game had hardly begun, however, when the cards dropped from his hands and he fell back on his bed. Before assistance could reach him all was over.

With the arrival of the nuns a new order of things began. Without entering into a detailed account of all the labors performed by the sisters since their arrival, it is enough to state that cleanliness and order prevail and true charity shows itself everywhere. The poor creatures, who formerly revelled in filth and disorder, now see about them decency and cleanliness. They are induced to be submissive and obedient by the hourly example of the sisters; their modesty and reserve, their virtue and careful speech, their watchful care and devotion, their tender attention to the sick, teach the inmates of the hospital the best of lessons. It is easy to imagine with what joy the poor lepers welcomed the nuns who came to consecrate their lives to this service, and also to understand with what affection and respect these holy women are regarded.

“The enclosed grounds of the lazaretto,” says Governor Gordon in his Wilderness Journeys, “consist of a green meadow three or four acres in extent. Within these limits the lepers are permitted to wander at their will. Until recently they were confined to the narrowest limits—a mere yard about the lazaretto. I entered these dreary walls, accompanied by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Chatham, by the secretary of the Board of Health, by the resident physician, and by the Catholic priest of the village, who is also the chaplain of the institution.

“Within the enclosure are several small wooden buildings, separated from each other, consisting of the kitchen, laundry, etc. A bath-house has recently been added to these, which will be a source of infinite comfort to the patients. The hospital contains two larger halls—one devoted to the men, the other to the women. Each room has a stove and a table with chairs about it, while the beds are ranged against the wall. These halls are both well lighted and ventilated, and at the time of my inspection were perfectly clean and fresh. At the end of these halls is a small chapel arranged in such a way that the patients of both sexes are able to hear Mass without meeting each other. Through certain openings they also confess to the priest and receive the holy communion.”

Many changes in the interior arrangements of the lazaretto followed the arrival of the sisters. The patients and the nuns now hear Mass at the same time. The male patients occupy two rooms twenty-five feet square, while similar apartments above are reserved for the females. The grounds of the lazaretto have also been enlarged.

“Before giving the characteristics of this appalling disease,” says Mr. Gordon, “I wish to reply to a question which you undoubtedly wish to ask: How is this malady propagated? No one knows. It seems not to be hereditary, since in one family the father or mother may be attacked, while the children entirely escape. In others the children are leprous and the parents healthy. In 1856 or '57 a woman named Domitile Brideau, wife of François Robichaud, was so covered with leprosy that her body was one mass of corruption. While in this state she gave birth to a daughter, whom she nursed—the mother shortly afterward dying in the hospital. Meanwhile, the child was absolutely healthy, and remained until she was three years of age in the hospital without any unfavorable symptoms being developed. The girl grew to womanhood and married, and to-day she and her children are perfectly healthy. Many similar examples might be cited.”

This malady, then, can hardly be contagious, since in one family husband or wife may be attacked, while the other goes unscathed. There is now at Tracadie a man, François Robichaud by name, who has had three wives; the two first perished of leprosy, the third is now under treatment at the lazaretto—the husband in the meanwhile enjoying perfect health. In one family two or more children are lepers, while the others are untainted. One servant-woman resided for eight years in the hospital, ate and drank with the patients, yet has never shown any symptoms of the disease. The laundress of the institution lives under its roof, and has done so for two years; she is a widow, her husband having died of the scourge, she being his sole nurse during his illness. She is in perfect health. It has also happened more than once that persons suspected of leprosy, and placed in the hospital, after remaining there several years and developing no further symptoms, are discharged as “whole.”

All the patients now in the hospital agree that the disease is communicated by touch, and each has his own theory as to where he was exposed to it—either by sleeping with some one who had it, or by eating and drinking with such.

I am strongly persuaded that this disease, whatever may be its origin, is greatly aggravated by the kind of life led by the natives of Tracadie, who are all fishermen or sailors. Their food is fish, generally herring, and their only vegetables turnips and potatoes. Such is their extreme poverty that there are not ten families in Tracadie who ever touch bread.

Let us follow Governor Gordon into the lazaretto.

“At the time of my visit,” he says, “there were twenty-three patients, thirteen men and ten women. They were all French and all Catholics, belonging to the lower class. They were of all ages, and had reached various stages of the disease. One old man, whose features were distorted out of all semblance to humanity, and who had apparently entered his second childhood, could hardly be sufficiently aroused from his apathy to receive the benediction of the bishop, before whom all the others sank on their knees.

“There were also young people who, to a casual observer, seemed vigorous and in health; while, saddest of all sights was that of the young children condemned to spend their lives in this terrible place. Above all was I touched by the sight of three small boys from eleven to fifteen years of age. To an inexperienced observer they had much the look of other children of their own age and class. Their eyes were bright and intelligent, but the fatal symptoms that had sufficed to separate them from home and kindred were written on their persons, and they were immured for life in the lazaretto.

“The greatest sympathy must naturally be felt for these younger victims when one thinks of the possible length of years that stretches before them, hopeless and cheerless; to grow to manhood with the capacities, passions, and desires of manhood, and condemned to live from youth to middle age, from middle age to decrepitude possibly, with no other society than that of their companions in misery. Utterly without occupations, amusements, or interests, shut off from all outside resources, their only excitement is found in the arrival of a new disease-stricken patient, their only occupation that of watching their companions dying before their eyes by inches!

“But few of the patients could read, and those who could were without books. There was evident need of some organization that might furnish the patients with employment. Both mind and body required occupation. Under these circumstances I was by no means surprised to learn that in the last stages of the disease the mind was generally much weakened.

“The suffering of the majority of the patients was by no means severe, and I was informed that one of the characteristic features of the malady was profound insensibility to pain. One individual was pointed out to me, who by mistake had laid his arm and open hand on a red-hot stove, and who knew nothing of it until the odor of burning flesh aroused his attention.”

After Governor Gordon’s visit the condition of the lepers was much improved. The sisters taught the young to read and employed them in making shoes and other articles.

The investigations of Governor Gordon, although made during a brief inspection of the lazaretto, are correct as far as they go, but are far from complete. The Abbé Gauvreau has been for eighteen years chaplain of the hospital. He has watched keenly the progress of the disease in over a hundred cases. He has noted every symptom of its slow and fatal march. He has been present at the deathbeds of many of the lepers, and he recounts with horror the terrible scenes he has witnessed.

“Without wishing to impose my opinions on you,” he says, “I cannot resist the conviction that, apart from divine will, this scourge of fallen man is a most subtle poison introduced into the human body by transmission or by direct contact, or even, perhaps, by prolonged cohabitation.

“But whichever of these suppositions is the more nearly correct, when once the poison is fairly within the system its action is so latent and insidious that for some years—two, four, or even more—the unfortunate Naaman or Giezi perceives in himself no change either in constitution or sensations. His sleep is as refreshing and his respiration as free as before. In a word, the vital organs perform all their functions and the various members are unshorn of their vigor and energy.

“At this period of the disease the skin loses its natural color, its healthy appearance, and is replaced by a deadly whiteness from head to foot. This whiteness looks as if the malady had taken possession of the mucous membrane and had displaced the fluids necessary to its functions. Without knowing if the leper of the Orient possesses other external indications, it is certain that in this stage the malady of Tracadie is precisely similar to the leprosy of the ancients—I mean in the whiteness of the skin. In the second stage the skin becomes yellow. In the third and last it turns to a deep red; it is often purple, and sometimes greenish, in hue. In fact, the people of Tracadie, like myself, are so familiar with the early symptoms of the disease that they rarely fall into a mistake.

“Only one death has ever occurred in the first stage—that of Cyrille Austin. All the other cases have passed on to the second or third stages before death; and, strangely enough, it has been remarked by the patients themselves that the treatment of Dr. La Bellois had always a much better chance of success during the third period than during the second.

“At first the victim feels devouring thirst, great feverish action, and a singular trembling in every limb; stiffness and a certain weakness in the joints; a great weight on the chest like that caused by sorrow; a rush of blood to the brain; fatigue and drowsiness, and other disagreeable symptoms which now escape my memory. The entire nervous system is then struck, as it were, with insensibility to such a degree that a sharp instrument or a needle, or even the blade of a knife, buried in the fleshy parts or thrust through the tendons and cartilage, causes the leper little or no pain. Some poor creature, with calm indifference, will place his arm or leg on a mass of burning wood and tar, and let it remain there until the entire limb, bones and all, is consumed; yet the leper feels no pain, and may sleep through it all as quietly as if in his bed.”

In another letter the abbé gives the following example of this astonishing insensibility:

“One of these afflicted beings who died at the lazaretto, and to whom I administered the last sacraments, lay down to sleep near a hot fire; in his slumbers he thrust one arm and hand into the flames, but continued to sleep. The overpowering smell of burning flesh awakened one of his companions, who succeeded in saving his life.”

One of the nuns says: “Since we reached Tracadie two of the patients have burned their hands severely, and were totally unconscious of having done so until I dressed the wounds myself.” In regard to this torpidity of the system, M. Gauvreau remarks that it is but temporary, but he knows not its duration; and the nun adds that the torpidity is not invariable with all the patients, and with some only in a portion of the body. In certain individuals it is only in the legs; in others, in the hands alone; but all complain of numbness like that of paralysis.

“By degrees,” says M. Gauvreau, “the unnatural whiteness of the skin disappears, and spots of a light yellow are to be seen. These spots in some cases are small and about the size of a dollar-piece. When of this character, they appear at first with a certain regularity of arrangement, and in places corresponding with each other, as on the two arms and shoulders—more generally, however, on the breast. They are distinct, but by degrees the poison makes its way throughout the vitals; the spots enlarge, approach each other, and, when at last united, the body of the sick man becomes a mass of corruption. Then the limbs swell, afterward portions of the body, the hands, and the feet; and when the skin can bear no further tension it breaks, and running sores cover the patient, who is repulsive and disgusting to the last degree.

“The entire skin of the body becomes extremely tender, and is covered with an oily substance that exudes from the pores and looks like varnish. The skin and flesh between the thumb and forefinger dry away, the ends of the fingers, the feet, and hands dwindle to nothingness, and sometimes the joints separate, and the members drop off without pain and often without the knowledge of the patient.

“The most noble part of the being created in the image of God—the face—is marred as much as the body by this fell disease. It is generally excessively swollen. The chin, cheeks, and ears are usually covered by tubercles the size of peas. The eyes seem to start from their sockets, and are glazed by a sort of cataract that often produces complete blindness. The skin of the forehead thickens and swells, acquiring a leaden hue, which sometimes extends over the entire countenance, while in other cases the whole face is suffused with scarlet. The explanation of these different symptoms may be found, of course, in the variety of temperaments—sanguine, bilious, or lymphatic. This face, once so smooth and fair, has become seamed and furrowed. The lips are two appalling ulcers—the upper lip much swollen and raised to the base of the nose, which has entirely disappeared; while the under lip hangs over the chin, which shines from the tension of the skin. Can a more frightful sight be imagined? In some cases the lips are parched and drawn up like a purse puckered on strings. This deformity is the more to be regretted is it precludes the afflicted from participation in the holy communion. Leprosy—that of Tracadie, at least—completes its ravages on the internal organs of its victims. It attacks now the larynx and all the bronchial ramifications; they become obstructed and filled with tubercles, so that the unhappy patient can find no relief in any position. His respiration becomes gradually more and more impeded, until he is threatened with suffocation. I have been present at the last struggles of most of these afflicted mortals. I hope that I may never be called upon to witness similar scenes. Excuse me from the details. If I undertook them my courage would give out; for I assure you that many of you would have fainted. Let me simply add that these lepers generally die in convulsions, panting for air; frequently rushing to the door to breathe; and, returning, they fling themselves on their pallets in despair. The thought of their sighs and sobs, the remembrance of their tears, almost breaks my heart, and their prayers for succor ring constantly in my ears: 'O my God! have mercy on me! have mercy on me!’

“At last comes the supreme moment of this lingering torture, and the patient dies of exhaustion and suffocation. All is over, and another Lazarus lies in Abraham’s bosom!”

After the above vivid picture of this loathsome disease we naturally ask if the evil be such that no medical skill can combat it with success. The Hospital Nun in the infirmary of the lazaretto tells us all that she has yet learned upon this point.

In 1849 and 1850 Dr. La Bellois, a celebrated French physician residing at Dalhousie, treated the lepers for six months and claimed to have cured ten of them: T. Goutheau, Charles Comeau, T. Brideau, A. Benoit, L. Sonier, Ed. Vienneau, Mme. A. Sonier, M. Sonier, Mme. Ferguson, Melina Lavoie. “All the above cases are now quite well, and the treatment I adopted was entirely for syphilitic disease, thus establishing without any doubt the nature of the disease” (extract from La Bellois’ report, Feb. 12, 1850).

Meanwhile, from the report of the secretary of the Board of Health—Mr. James Davidson—we gather that all the sick above mentioned returned after a time to the hospital; that they died there, with the exception of three, of whom two died in their own houses and the third still lives. Of this one Dr. Gordon, of Bathurst, says: “The disease is slow in its progress, but it is sure, and the fatal termination cannot be far off.”

Dr. Nicholson undertook the treatment at the lazaretto. By a certain course of medicine, the details of which he kept a profound secret, and with the aid of vapors, he wonderfully improved the physical condition of the lepers, who in many instances indulged sanguine hopes of recovery. Unfortunately, however, this physician suddenly abandoned his profession, and, to the sorrow of his former patients, died three years later. The lepers soon relapsed into their former hopeless state, and since then no change has taken place.

“On our arrival at Tracadie,” said the sister, “we found twenty inmates of the hospital, and since three more have been admitted. These poor creatures, being firmly persuaded that we could cure them, besieged us with entreaties for medicine, and were satisfied with whatever we gave. At first I selected three who had undergone no medical treatment; these three were also the only ones who suffered from contraction of the extremities. The first, twenty-two years of age, had been at the hospital four years, and as yet showed the disease only in the contraction above mentioned, and in a certain insensibility of the feet and hands. The second, fifteen years old, had been in the hospital for two years, his hands and feet were drawn up, and he suffered from a large swelling on the left foot. This young fellow is very delicate, and suffers intensely at times from spasms of the stomach. The third case is a lad of eleven, who for two years has suffered from the disease. His hands are twisted out of shape, and his body is covered with spots, red and white; these spots are totally without sensibility. I have administered to these patients the remedies as prescribed by Mr. Fowle—Fowle’s Humor Cure, an American patent medicine. The first and second patient experienced no other benefit from this remedy than a certain vigor previously unfelt. To the third the sensibility of the cuticle returned, but the spots remained the same. This in itself is very remarkable, because in no previous case have these benumbed or paralyzed parts regained their sensation. To another, a patient of twenty-two, I gave the same remedy. For eight years he had been a martyr to the virulence of the disease. When we arrived at the lazaretto, we found his case to be one of the worst there. His nose had fallen in; the lips were enormously puffed and swollen; his hands equally so, and looked more like the paws of a bear than like the hands of a human being. The saliva was profuse, but the effort of swallowing almost futile. Soon after taking this same medicine the saliva ceased to flow and he swallowed with comparative ease.

“On the 23d of January he was, by the mercy of God, able to partake of the holy communion, of which he had been deprived for four years. His lips are now of their natural size, and he is stronger than he has been for years. But the pains in his limbs are far worse than they have ever before been. I have also given Fowle’s cure to all the patients who had been under no previous medical treatment, and invariably with beneficial results. In some the tint of the skin is more natural; in others the swelling of the extremities is much abated; but the remedy seems always to occasion an increase of pains in the limbs, although it unquestionably acts as a tonic upon the poor creatures. In all of them the mouth and throat improve with the use of Fowle’s cure. And here let me say that this disease throughout bears a strong resemblance to syphilis. In both diseases the throat, the tongue, and the whole inside of the mouth are ulcerated. In both diseases the voice is affected to such a degree that it can hardly make itself heard. They cough frightfully, and some time after our coming a leper presented himself for admission at our hospital doors. The poor creature was covered with ulcers and every night was bathed in a cold perspiration. After he had rested for a few days, I gave him a powerful dose of la liqueur arsenicale, which has since been repeated. The night-sweats have disappeared, and the ulcers are healed, with the exception of one on the foot. His lips are still unhealthy, but he is much stronger, and the spots on his person are gradually disappearing.

“Two others, later arrivals have taken la liqueur arsenicale and have improved under its use. Suspecting that the origin of this malady may be traced to another source, and remembering the opinion of Dr. La Bellois, I gave the bichloride of mercury, in doses of the thirty-second part of a grain, to the worst case in the hospital. It is too soon, however, to judge of its effects. The improvement in no one of these cases is rapid, but we trust that it is certain. We look to God alone for the success for which we venture to hope. I can find no statistics which will enable me to give you the number of victims that have fallen under this dread malady of Tracadie. I find, however, a letter from M. Gauvreau, bearing the date of November 30, 1859, that sixty persons perished from its ravages in the previous fifteen years, and that twenty-five of both sexes, and of all ages, were then inmates of the lazaretto, awaiting there the end of their torments.”

In 1862 Mr. Gordon said that he saw twenty-three patients at the hospital, and the Sisters of the Hôtel Dieu found twenty there when they reached the lazaretto, and have since admitted three in addition; it does not seem, therefore, as if the “eldest sister of Death” had relaxed her hold on this unhappy village. Yet if the disease can but be confined to this locality, wonders will be achieved. Good care, regular medical attendance, incessant vigilance, with intelligent adherence to hygienic laws, may eventually cause its entire disappearance from our soil. Let us hope that the faithful sisters will succeed in their good work; for we ourselves, every one of us, have a personal interest in it. Unfortunately, this good result is far from certain, as the Abbé Gauvreau desires us to understand.

“One or more of these unfortunates,” he says, “feeling the insidious approaches of the disease, and shrinking from the idea of the lazaretto, have at times secretly escaped from Tracadie. They leave Miramichi on the steamer, intending to land at Rivière-du-Loup, at Kamouraska, perhaps at Quebec or at Montreal. As yet no ulcers are visible, nor, indeed, any external symptoms which could excite the smallest suspicion. On landing at some one of the places mentioned they procure situations in different houses, and remain in them for a month or two, perhaps, saying nothing all this time of their symptoms to any one, not even to a physician. They eat with their master’s family, and, even if they take the greatest precaution, they convey this poisonous virus to their masters. When they have reason to fear that suspicion is about being aroused, they depart, but it is too late, and they go to scatter the contagion still further.

“The following instance came under my own observation: A youth suffering from this disease, and dreading the lazaretto, went to Boston, where he secured a position on a fishing vessel, hoping that the sea air, with the medicines that he would take, would effect his cure. He soon found that these hopes were groundless, and was obliged to enter the hospital in Boston, where, in spite of the care and attention bestowed upon him by the physicians of the medical school at Cambridge, he died, far from friends and home.”

One naturally asks, with a thrill of horror, whether, before the admission of this poor creature to the hospital, he did not transmit to his shipmates the poisonous virus that filled his own blood.

The total disappearance of this disease—if such disappearance may be hoped for—will be due exclusively to the noble and untiring exertions of the sisters. Tracadie and its afflicted population would not alone owe a debt of eternal gratitude to these Hospital Nuns. America itself would share this feeling. With an example like this of charity and self-abnegation before us, we cannot cease to wonder at, and to deplore, the narrow minds of those persons who condemn the monastic institutions of the church. Let us compassionate all such; for to them light is lacking, and they have yet to learn the great truth that the duty most inculcated by the church, after the love of God, is the love of our neighbors.