LEPROSY SCOURGE.

Waikato Times, Volume 112, Issue 18796, 18 November 1932, Page 4

LEPROSY SCOURGE.

DREAD DISEASE FOUGHTWORK AT RfIAKOQAI. 500 PATIENTS ON ISLAND. The annual appeal to bring Christmas cheer to the lepers at Makogal leper station Is being made, and people have the opportunity of showing their appreciation of the work being carried on at the settlement. When the Makogal leper station was established in 1911 by the Fijian Government the Governor of Fiji appealed to Bishop Vidal to obtain the services of the nursing alßters. In that year two French nursing sisters and three native sisters left for the island to care for about 30 lepers. Since then the New Zealand sufferers of the disease, who were formerly sent to Quail Island, have been transferred to Makogal, whore 500 patients are being cared for, including more than 100 from New Zealand, Samoa, and Cook islands. R. L. SteVenson described leprosy sufferers as “abominable deformations of our common manhood," and the hospitals where “the butt-ends of human beings lie, almost unrecognisable, yet still breathing, still thinking, still remembering." Sufferers cured. i Everything possible is being donft [ to arrest and oure the disease, at one time considered incurable. Of late i years sufferers havo been cured and discharged from the island. : As leprosy is a highly contagious disease, the work of the sisters and staff is an unenviable one. As well as men and women patients there are . several children on the island. Sister . Suzanne, who has been in charge of s the sisters since the inception of the station, in acknowledging reoeipt of a t sum of money, wrote a pathetlo letter to the children of New Zealand.

“The poor little lepers," she wrote, “are suffering; their faoes are swollen, and some have very bad eyes. Others have, through the disease, lost fingers and toes .. . Some of them might get better one day and go back to their homes, but many will never see their parents again. The sisters try to be for them all they miss, and make them feel as happy as they 'can In spite of their disease. . . Besides money, the goods most appreciated for Christmas gifts for the lepers are materials of all kinds for clothing in tropical regions; materials for fancy work, lace, ribbons, sewing cotton, silks, etc., for the girls; writing paper and envelopes, toilet 60ap, tobacco and pipes, and tools for woodwork. #

The Cook Islands Department will attend to the shipment of the goods, so that they will arrive at the leper settlement In time for Christmas.