Carville : Remembering Leprosy in America

透過對活著的病人採訪和對麻風病院檔案的廣泛研究，Carville：在美國麻風病回憶，講述了全國漢森病中心前病人的故事。一個多世紀以來，從1894年到1999年，卡維爾是美國大陸唯一一家治療漢森病的醫院，這是麻風病的首選名稱。

患者 - 通過法律流放在那裡進行治療與社會其他人分離 - 揭示他們如何應對麻風病診斷對他們造成的毀滅性打擊。麻風病是如此令人恐懼，如此不明白，如果一個家庭成員患上這種疾病，整個家庭都會受到影響並被避開。當患者進入卡維爾時，他們通常會拋棄一切，包括他們的合法名稱和他們對未來的希望。

Carville的前病人提供他們對外界和他們在治療中心鍛造的文化看法，其中包括已婚和個人生活區、酒吧、甚至監獄。那些在麻風病院被隔離的人創造了他們自己的狂歡節慶祝活動，他們自己的報紙，以及他們自己的榮耀故事，其中漢森病的同胞患者勝過創傷和排斥。通過他們的記憶和故事，我們看到他們以尊嚴、幽默和優雅來追求身份和耐力。

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 open to reveal 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, 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.

  Marcia Gaudet (Autor)

Publisher:University Press of Mississippi 

ISBN:    978-1578066933 

原價   US 28 台幣價 NT$1020