Carville's Cure: Leprosy, Stigma, and the Fight for Justice [Hardcover]

The unknown story of the only leprosy colony in the continental United States, and the thousands of Americans who were exiledhidden away with their shameful disease. [F]ascinating.... A remarkable and vivid case study for exploring issues of patients rights, the ethics of clinical research and the notorious American tradition of intermingling concerns about disease with anxieties about immigration and the proper scope of public-welfare management.... Ms. Fesslers meticulously researched account illuminates the endless ways, large and small, in which those confined to Carville sought to determine the shape of their own lives. Fessler presents inspiring and tragic stories of patients who mostly experienced Carville as a prison, sometimes a sanctuary.... Heartbreaking and infuriating. NPR correspondent Fesslers polished and compassionate debut examines the history of Hansens disease (the modern name for leprosy) in America through the story of the Louisiana Leper Home in Carville, La. Fessler profiles several patients (most of whom were sent to Carville by mandatory state reporting laws), including her husbands grandfather, and New Orleans debutante Betty Parker, who fell in love with a fellow patient and ran away with him.... Her well-researched and articulate account humanizes sufferers and caregivers alike, and offers hope in the medical fields ability to halt the spread of contagious illness. Readers will be enlightened and encouraged. Fessler [makes] the residents, and their doctors and the Daughters of Charity nuns who cared for them, come alive in this telling. The treatment of those living with Hansens Disease has had a quiet and shameful history, but Fessler allows for peoples voices to be heard in their own words. A heart-wrenching story of little-known social history. [A] fine history, by turns heartbreaking and infuriating. . . Fessler paints a clear picture of a class of people who were confined at Carville typically for life, isolated, strilƒ"