Trinidad - The Traveller's Tree: A Journey Through the Caribbean Islands - page 98

and sometimes religiously solemnized, death-in-life of the lepers of the past. But the main curse of the
disease, the segregation, lasting usually for the whole of the patient's life, still remains. And lifelong sep-
aration from the rest of humanity being as bad or worse than death itself for many people, a government
is faced with the problem of discovering the lepers, in order that they may be prevented from infecting
others. Many of them nobly forswear their right to a normal life, and, by declaring their disease to the
authorities, condemn themselves to a life sentence of segregation. But many cannot bring themselves to
do this, and official surveys have to be organized, backed up if necessary by the force and authority of
the state; a hopeless task in India, where a million and a half known lepers exist, and perhaps an equal
number of undeclared cases. The problem of detecting and segregating them is almost insoluble; but the
smaller extent of the Antilles fortunately makes this task much easier.
But, painful as the segregation of an unwilling or of a cryptoleper must be, or of a victim who is
unaware of his disease, once they are installed in a place like Chacachacare, all is done that ingenuity
and humanity can invent to make their lives as normal as the circumstances allow. Unfortunately, the
nature of the disease excludes complete normality even here. For the children, who are only slightly in-
fected—some of them perhaps curable—have to be specially guarded from their elders. They live and
sleep and eat in separate buildings. Schools and playgrounds are provided for them, and they are taught
games and dancing and trained in professions, and in fishing and boating. Many find a pleasant and stim-
ulating outlet in the Boy Scout Movement. The ones whom we saw eating in their little dining-room,
chattering and laughing and interrupting each other, or sitting on a bench and talking to one of the nuns,
appeared as happy and as normal as though they did not know that leprosy existed. On the arm of one
little girl—separated, alas, from the other children—Dr. Campbell pointed out to us the greyish-mauve
patch that is the equivalent on a skin with African pigmentation of the almost mythical snow-white lep-
rous colour that plays such a lurid part in literature.
The grown-ups, too, are not all able to mix freely, owing to the varying gravity of their infection. For
some of them, who are afflicted with the mild variety of the disease which limits itself to certain parts of
the body, are uninfectious. The complaint may heal up with treatment or even vanish of its own accord;
or—for its nature is incalculable—it may prolong itself, and attack the larger nerves and limbs and de-
form the feet and hands. But the leading of a normal life is encouraged, to the very limits of possibility
and safety. It is, unfortunately, an affliction that occurs most frequently among people with little educa-
tion and few of the inner resources which would enable them to occupy their time by study or artistic
activity; who are least able to put up a philosophic resistance to that apathy which is the worst enemy of
recovery—a factor which sometimes drives incurable patients to chronic despair and melancholia.
One of the best antidotes to this frame of mind, and to that lack of physical and mental resistance
which accelerates all diseases, is the provision of good and varied food. Many of the patients, Dr. Camp-
bell explained, as we walked from hut to hut, have become skilled tailors, carpenters and cobblers; some
of them turn themselves into farmers and market gardeners for supplying the needs of the little republic
or for sale outside the colony. Pregnancy is dangerous for women patients, and mothers must at once be
separated from their children; and so sexual frustration contributes its misery to the other scourges of lep-
rosy. But (and this is a great consolation to parents) leprosy is not a congenital disease, and so, although
they may never again see their children, who are looked after by relations or government institutions, they
know that they will grow up free of the disease which has ruined their own lives. Thus lepers can marry,
and though it is not a perfect solution, it is certainly better than the mental ravages that would occur if