National Affairs: Lepers

Further impetus was given, last week, to Governor General Leonard Wood's plea for $1,000,000 for the leper colony on the Island of Culion, the Philippines.

The story was told of the retreat founded by Dr. Victor G. Heiser. In a commandeered Government vessel, he went from port to port, herded the wretches on board, took them to Culion. There they led normal lives, received the expensive treatment of ethyl ester. Their children were born "clean."

But, in the 1916-21 period of Filipino political control, under the Jones Act, 300 infant children contracted the dread disease, and the colony went from bad to worse.

As...

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