QUAIL ISLAND

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14820, 7 December 1921, Page 3

QUAIL ISLAND

DOMINION LEPER COLONY. TWO WHITE MEN EXILED. Last March I was privileged to be able to visit the New Zealand Government leper settlement on Quail Island, which lies in Lyttclton Harbour (writes "Ex-Ship's Surgeon" in the Daily Mail). One end is reserved for the lepers, the 'other is used for a quarantine station for imported livestock, where horses, cattle, and so forth remained for six weeks or so before landing on the mainland. The settlement is under the supervision Of the medical officer, who very kindly showed me all the cases and the arrangements for treatment. Eagerness Over New Drug. Both the nodular and anaesthetic types of the disease were to be seen in these afflicted people. They had been told by a doctor that a new drug was being sent from Sydney, and it was pathetic 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. Eaclr 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 settlement and look after the wants of the patients. On Saturday afternoons visitors from Lyttclton sail across to the Island in launches, and arc allowed to come to the outskirts of the -village, bringing little presents of fruit and so forth. They can sit on forms and converse with the lepers, who stand a few yards off. No Exceptional Risk of Infection. There arc 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 those in attendance on leprous patients run little more risk of leprosy than the nurses and staff in a consumption hospital do of tuberculosis.