Valley Poultry Co.
REGISTERED LICENSED Wholesale Fresh Killed Poultry
Mgr. CLIFFORD KONG MiU 4-7912 253 Pemfor I
Vancouver 4, B.C.
'The Sign of Quality*
CITY-WIDE PICK-UP & DELIVERY Corner 44th at Victoria Drive
FAirfax 5-3711
BRITEWAY CLEANERS LTD. 5890 Victoria
The only system using typewritable address plates.
N. A. PRUSHAW
OFFICE EQUIPMENT 47 Kingsway TRinity 6-0827
PACE EIGHT
for fear of being put away in a leprosarium.
Actually, there is not an empty bed anywhere for them in the colony, but they can receive out-patient treatment on the mainland, and the worst cases will be given attention whenever possible.
The hospital wards were mostly occupied by men. In this country, two-thirds of the victims of the disease are men, although that ratio is not found to exist in other countries. In India, for instance, it hits more women. In those wards we saw men and women whose fingers had been eaten completely away by the disease.
Some had been operated on below the knuckles, making stub-like fingers which, by a modern miracle, could move.
The same pertained to toes, the disease causing the bones slowly to disappear. In other instances, there was what is called "dropped hands"; the wrist muscles were gone, and the clever doctors had done wonders to bring action into play again. Dropped feet were cured, too; ulcers were done away with; ghastly nodules actually disappeared from the face (leaving scars only), hair grew back where none had escaped the ravages of the disease.
It was awful to think that such a disease could exist. But it was wonderful to contemplate man's assaults upon it, and more wonderful to see for myself the tremendous spirit of cheerfulness and patience shown by these most hapless people.
Leprosy, thankfully, is not a painful disease, but it renders its victims hideously crippled, and they lie day after day, month after month, year after year ― it can take five or more years to effect a reasonable cure, though the disease is stopped dead in its tracks much more effectively.
Then as they start to have some action, 'they get busy in the buildings provided for their use. They weave baskets with surprising dexterity, do embroidery of infinite beauty and pains-takingness, carve wood, make wooden models of buildings with utmost attention to detail, grow vegetables for themselves, tend pigs and ducks for food, and generally enjoy a far greater degree of living than many of their poor fellow men on the mainland.
At present, leprosy is predominant in Africa, Ch|na, South Korea, Japan, India, Southeast Asia and some Pacific islands and South America, but in the Middle Ages it prevailed in many other parts, including as far north as Nor-,
CHINATOWN. NEWS, APRIL 18, 1960