QUAIL ISLAND AND THE LEPERS.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17296, 7 November 1921, Page 5

QUAIL ISLAND AND THE LEPERS.

Last March I was privileged to be able to viiit the Now Zealand Government leper settlement on Quail Island, which lies in Ly Welt on, harbour (writes "ExShip's Surgeon'' in tho London "Daily Mail" of St'pember 14th). Tho island serves a double purpose—one end is reserved for the .lepers, the other is used as a quarantine station for imported livestock, where horseß, and so forth remain for six weeks or so before landing on the mainland, The settlement is under the supervision of the port medical officer, who very kindly snowed me all the cases and the arrangements for their treatment.

Six lepers were living there—all of them men, two being whites, the others Maoris and a Samoan. One of the whites has been there for sixteen years, while the other had been a soldier in ihe late war nnd was tupposed to have contracted leprosy on the expedition to Samoa.

Both the nodular and anesthetic types of the disease were to be seen in these afflicted people. They had been told by the doctor that a new drug was being sent from Sydney, and it was pathetio to see the eagerness with which the poor fellows asked if it had arrived. This drug somewhat resembles salvarsan, but is a compound of antimony. Each man had a little wooden house to himself, containing a living room and a bedroom. A matron and a female cook have recently been appointed to live in the seUloraent and look after the wants of the patients. On Saturday afternoon visitors from Lyttelton sail across to the island in launches and aro allowed to come to the ; outskirts of the village, bringing little presents of fruit and so forth. There they can sit on forms and converse with the lepers, who stand a few yards off. There are books available for those who can read, but I did not see that any attempt was made to encourage the lepers to cultivate little bits of garden, which I think would have brought considerable pleasure into their sad lives. • I came away from Quail Island with my ideas of the infectiousness of leprosy considerably modified. "With reasonable precautions these in attendance on leprous patients run little more risk of leprosy than the nurses and staff in a consumption hospital do of tuberculosis.