EFFORTS TO COMFORT--OUR SUBSCRIPTION FUND--IMPROVEMENTS.
I managed, after a deal of trouble, to give each of the leper women a
small tin-enamelled washstand; but much opposition was brought to bear
on me by the officials in my efforts to alleviate their sufferings in
any way. Daisy, who spoke to me about the bath-room, says she hangs up
a towel in front of the doorway and so secures privacy in that way;
but it is a wretched makeshift at the best. Seeing that no female
attendant was provided to attend to the personal requirements of these
poor women, whose disease renders them miserably helpless, we thought
out a project by which a native woman could be got to wait on them.
By this time my article, which, as I explained, had been written when
the scene presented to me on my first visit to the Leper Asylum was
fresh and vivid in my recollection, had been published in our paper and
had been productive of good results. Parcels of linen, books, soap,
tea, and various things were sent me, together with subscriptions
amounting to over Rs. 800. Out of this we sent a cheque for Rs. 192 to
the committee of the District Charitable Society, with the request that
a female attendant be provided for the female European and Eurasian
inmates of the Leper Asylum, at a salary of Rs. 8 a-month, for two
years. This money was, I am glad to say, accepted by the committee,
and the attendant procured. We read an account in a local paper of Dr.
Unna’s new medicine for leprosy, which had been highly recommended
by Dr. Milton, senior surgeon of St. John’s Hospital for Diseases of
the Skin, London, and at once forwarded to the committee of the
D. C. S., from our Leper Fund, a cheque for Rs. 250, with the request
that the money be used in procuring the medicine from England and giving
it a fair trial in the Calcutta Leper Asylum, together with a promise
of a further remittance of Rs. 250 for this object should it be
required. This money was, after some discussion, accepted, and an order
for the medicine sent to England. I must not forget to mention that we
pointed out in our letter to the Committee the advisability of having
the new medicine tried here by an English doctor. I had secured the
confidence of the public, who sympathised with me in my work, and sent
me various sums of money from time to time. Monthly subscriptions to
our Leper Fund amounted to Rs. 40. With this sum I was able to spend
Rs. 10 weekly on comforts for the white female lepers. I gave the
four of them a rupee each, and spent the remaining six rupees on jam,
fruit, biscuits, lavender water, flowers, etc., always reserving a few
rupees, which I exchanged into coppers, and gave each native leper
woman as many as I could afford. My weekly visits to the Leper Asylum
were always paid in company with Brother John, who arranged to go
with me every Tuesday, and who was my most staunch and sincere helper
in this work. We had at first to encounter much opposition from the
officials; were not allowed to visit the asylum without sending for the
superintendent, nor permitted to give anything to the lepers without
first having our gifts pass through his hands. I found this arrangement
most unpleasant, for among my gifts to these poor friendless women were
things that are not generally allowed to pass through the hands of a
man, and, besides, I often wanted to speak to the women alone, and the
presence of the superintendent was in no way desirable. Being utterly
powerless to move the men on the Committee, who regarded me as an enemy
to be thwarted at every turn, and held up to scorn and ridicule, I
appealed to the public through our paper, with the result that several
indignant letters from sympathisers appeared in the local daily papers.
This caused a change of front. Mrs. Smith, the matron at the almshouse,
opposite the asylum, was told to attend me in my visits, and distribute
the gifts I took to the lepers. I noticed, also, that some improvements
had been made in the asylum. Bridget’s room had been cut off entirely
from the native ward by a wooden partition; a bath-room, constructed
of matting and bamboos, for her special use, had been fitted up in the
small verandah at the back of her room. The food of the lepers had
also been undergoing a change, and Bridget was given a little curry
and rice, in addition to her bread and milk. The people who are always
ready to put an entirely false construction on the motives of others
had been busy with their tongues, and had told Bridget and the others
that I had only taken them up as a “fad,” to drop as quickly when I
got tired of them. This was all duly repeated to me by the lepers
themselves, who had begun to put by their weekly rupee against the time
when supplies would be stopped. Of course, I was hurt and grieved to
think that people could be so ungenerous as to say such things to the
poor lepers, and tried to impress on Bridget that so long as I remained
in Calcutta, with health and strength, I would let nothing prevent me
from paying my weekly visit to them, and that when I was unable to do
so, failing any lady, Brother John had promised to take up the work.
This satisfied the old woman somewhat. She considered for a time, and
then said, “Yes, I think you are telling the truth, because you have
always kept your promises. I asked Mrs. ---- to bring me some red
herrings, and she said she would; but they never came. When I asked
you, you brought them. Besides, a young clergyman came here once--only
once--and promised to send me some picture-books, but he never sent
them; so you see we haven’t much faith in people now: we only believe
them when we see them keep their promises.” I often used to find Daisy,
the Jewess, and Bella together in Daisy’s little room, talking of their
affliction. Suffering and sorrow have bound at least two of these women
together in the holiest ties of friendship and love. One day I found
them much depressed. I know not what had happened: I think there had
been trouble with the officials. Whatever it was, they were afraid to
tell me more than that they had been forbidden to speak about their
feeding and treatment, as I had been publishing articles on their state
in our paper. When I told them that money had been sent to England for
the newly-recommended medicine for them, they were delighted; asked me
many questions as to what it was like, when it would arrive, whether I
thought it would do them any good, and many others that I was unable to
answer.
[Illustration: BROTHER JOHN.
_p. 41._]
To show the horrible neglect, as far as medical attention was
concerned, that existed in this Leper Asylum, I may mention that the
patients were in charge of a native “compounder” (see Mr. Prinsep’s
remark on page 35). Although Bridget, the old Irishwoman, was regarded
by the officials of the Asylum as a leper, my husband and I doubted
the accuracy of their judgment in this case; for it seemed impossible
that she could be in such fair health, as she was, had she been thus
afflicted for a dozen or more years, as they asserted. Her features
were as regular and clean cut, as they would be in any woman of her
age; and were free, as far as we could see, from any tubercles or
nodules peculiar to leprosy, especially when it is of long standing.
There was no distortion of her fingers or toes (she generally went
about barefoot), and there was no staining of the skin of the uncovered
parts of her body. Her feet and lower parts of her legs were somewhat
swollen, which condition might very easily have been induced by
debility brought on by the insufficiency of the food she was allowed,
by the effects of the enervating climate, by want of proper exercise,
and by age. She suffered from no leprous pains, the acuteness of
her senses were in no way diminished, and she was affected with no
special lassitude. The only symptom which in her was at all diagnostic
(if I may be pardoned for using a medical term which exactly conveys
my meaning) of leprosy was a feeling of numbness which she had. My
husband, who is a Fellow of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons,
and who has studied the nature of disease both in the lower animals
and in man, tells me that this feeling of numbness is not peculiar to
leprosy, but that it might have arisen, in Bridget, from another and
not very dissimilar disease, which Bridget, according to the Leper
Asylum officials, had contracted many years ago. I may also mention
that this poor Irishwoman was entirely free from the peculiar odour
which Dr. MacLaren (than whom there is no more experienced authority)
regards (see page 116) as diagnostic of leprosy. Besides, Mrs. Grant,
who had taken an interest in Bridget for many years, told us that Dr.
Kenneth Stewart, who was formerly in practice in Calcutta, and who had
examined Bridget, had told her that the Irishwoman was not a leper. As
we had only the unprofessional opinion of the Asylum people against our
contention, and as we thought it horrible that on such slight evidence
this poor creature should be stowed away in a native leper asylum, we
applied and received permission to have her examined by Dr. Crombie,
superintendent of the Calcutta General Hospital. This was done, and
Dr. Crombie gave it his opinion that she was a leper, because of the
numbness or _anæsthesia_ (see page 116) from which she suffered.