CHAPTER XIX. The Leper Colony

THE LEPER COLONY

Another sanitary precaution that the Health Department determined upon was the segregation of the lepers. The Republic of Panama required by law the segregation of these people, but the community had been so poor for so many years that it was unable to bear the expense of any careful enforcement of this law. Some twelve or thirteen lepers had been living in huts down on the bay for a number of years, supported by the charity of such individuals as, moved by pity, could afford it. This burden for a long time before our arrival had fallen entirely upon Mr. Espinosa, one of the leading citizens of Panama.

Knowing that we would have a certain number of lepers in the Zone, we made the same proposition to the Panaman Government with regard to lepers that we had made with regard to the insane; that is, that we would care for their lepers at the rate of seventy-five cents per day per capita.

We established a colony on a beautifully located peninsula running out into the bay of Panama, and almost as much isolated as if it were on an island. Here they could have their gardens, chickens, fruit-trees, etc. The location is naturally one of the prettiest on the bay.

We now have there some fifty lepers, who are living contented and happy. We have a white male trained nurse in general charge; a white female trained nurse in charge of the women, and some four or five other employees. We have a teacher for the children, and the lepers are always employed for any work of which they are capable, and are paid for this work so as to encourage them to seek it.

Dr. Henry R. Carter devoted a great deal of time and attention to the establishment of this colony, and it was due to his painstaking personal care that the matter turned out so successfully.

The history of the spread of leprosy is peculiar in that those who live with lepers in institutions and are constantly in contact with them do not as a general thing contract the disease. I refer to such people as doctors, nurses and attendants. On the other hand, people who have never known of any contact with a leper sometimes develop the disease. Such a case was that of the English Consul, about 1850, who found himself with symptoms of leprosy, without, as far as he knew, ever having come in personal contact with a sufferer from this disease.

On one of the smaller islands of the bay, Flemenco, there was an old Spanish fort, which had been long unoccupied—not a very large work, intended to contain a garrison of some thirty or forty men. Just behind the fort was a pretty, cool, clean spring, which at some period long passed had been walled up and covered in for the use of the garrison. The island of Flemenco is at the mouth of the present Canal, and rises some three hundred and forty feet above the surface of the water. It is at present being fortified for the protection of the Canal. The English Consul, when he found he was a leper, determined that he would never return home, bought Flemenco Island, fixed up the old fort comfortably as a residence for himself, and there, with a few faithful attendants, he spent the rest of his life, a voluntary prisoner, and there he died and was buried.

A few hundred yards north of Flemenco was the scene of another naval battle during the revolution of 1903. The Government forces in the state of Panama under General Alban had brought the country into subjection to the federal government of Colombia. The rebels still had a gunboat, manned and equipped, lying at Taboga. General Alban, the governor, seized one of the merchant steamers lying in the harbor at Panama, armed her, put a crew aboard with a considerable number of soldiers, and determined to attack the smaller rebel gunboat.

He sailed down to Flemenco Island, where he anchored for the night. During the night the rebel gunboat came up under the shelter of Flemenco Island. As day broke she steamed out from behind Flemenco; ranged herself along the stern of Governor Alban’s ship where no guns could bear upon her, but where all of her broadsides could bear upon the Government ship, which had no steam up, and which could not, therefore, maneuver.

The rebel commander called upon the brave old Governor to surrender, representing that he was entirely at his mercy, but this the Governor refused to do. The rebel ship then opened fire, and continued to fire without any possibility of injury to herself, until the Government vessel was sunk. The survivors reported that Governor Alban and most of his men were killed by the hostile fire before the ship went down. For many years the masts and upper works of this vessel could be seen at low tide projecting above the water.