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.