Carville: Remembering Leprosy In America | 
| Author: Marcia Gaudet
Creator: James Carville
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Category: Book
List Price: $28.00
Buy New: $22.40
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Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 593254
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 221
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7 x 5.1 x 1
ISBN: 157806693X
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.19699800976344
EAN: 9781578066933
ASIN: 157806693X
Publication Date: December 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Book Description
Mysterious and misunderstood, distorted by biblical imagery of disfigurement and uncleanness, Hansen's disease (or leprosy) has all but disappeared from America's consciousness. In Carville, Louisiana, the closed doors of the nation's last center for the treatment of leprosy hold stories of sadness, separation, and even strength in the face of what was once a life-wrenching diagnosis. Drawn from interviews with living patients and extensive research in the leprosarium's archives, "Carville: Remembering Leprosy in America" tells the stories of former patients at the National Hansen's Disease Center. For over a century, from 1894 until 1999, Carville was the site of the only in-patient hospital in the continental United States for the treatment of Hansen's disease, which is the preferred designation for leprosy. Patients --- exiled there by law for treatment and for separation from the rest of society --- reveal how they were able to cope with the devastating blow the diagnosis of leprosy dealt them. Leprosy was so frightening and so poorly understood that entire families would suffer and be shunned if one family member contracted the disease. When patients entered Carville, they typically left everything behind, including their legal names and their hopes for the future. Former patients at Carville give their views of the outside world and of the culture they forged within the treatment center, which included married and individual living quarters, a bar, and even a jail. Those quarantined in the leprosarium created their own Mardi Gras celebrations, their own newspaper, and their own body of honored stories in which fellow sufferers of Hansen's disease prevailed over trauma and ostracism. Through their memories and stories, we see their very human quest for identity and endurance with dignity, humor, and grace.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Fascinating July 26, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
With a natural wonder for all things morbid and the inner lives of people that struggle, I was curious to know the details about leprosy as a disease and also about the personal details of the people that suffered with it. This book gave enough scientific facts about the disease to quench my curiousity, and also managed to give a personal perspective, delving into the details of the lives of, and even quoting, victims of the disease that lived when leprosy was still misunderstood greatly. I read the entire book, then ordered, "The Colony", a book about a leper colony that existed on an island in Hawaii. I found that book very dry, as it traced the character's lives very factually. It was so much like a history book that I couldn't even make it quite half way through.
 Not comprehensive but it's a small book September 14, 2006
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have been aware of the Carville facility since I read Betty Martin's "Miracle at Carville" as a child, and was delighted to learn about 10 years ago that at that time, she was still living. The book was very respectful of her privacy, not revealing her real name even though she died in 2002.
It was a superficial history of the facility and its newsletter, "The Star", which probably did more to promote knowledge about this interesting disease than anything else.
 A Disappointment June 27, 2006
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Gaudet's book fails to tell us very much about the day to day lives of Carville's patients. Granted, she does relate stories about the Mardi Gras parade and about sneaking off the grounds (I was surprised by the largely positive reactions of the outside community). But time after time, I would read a passage and want to know more. After finishing the book, I hardly had any more knowledge about Hansen's Disease and the Carville experience than I had before I began reading it.
 reflecting on carville January 11, 2005
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
This book deserves a more intensive review than this, but it also deserves to be read,so I will at least share some random reflections on it. Carville is the name of a small community in south Louisiana. It is also a euphemism for the location of the hospital that for more than 100 years treated patients with leprosy (preferably called Hansen's disease.) As such Carville was a place of mystery and curiosity. Marcia Gaudet's new book of recollections takes the mystery out of the place and shows it to be the home of an intensely courageous group of people, stigmatized for their condition but never defeated. The book which has much to offer to the scholar and the lay reader alike records the memories of trauma and grief that Hansen's disease patients endured. But the book does not stop with trauma. It relates the formation and growth of a community with its own traditions (escaping through the hole in the fence), celebrations (Mardi Gras) and tall tales. For anyone with even a casual interest in the lives of people in intensely painful situations the book is an inspiration and a must read.
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