Home of the Hansen's Disease

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The National Hansen’s Disease Museum in Carville, a small town in Plaquemine, is like no other because it seeks to inform their viewers of a tragic illness which resulted in a quarantine of the people who suffered from it. This museum was once the home to many who retained the Hansen’s disease, also known as Leprosy (Laleego, 2015). “Leprosy is an infectious disease that causes severe, disfiguring skin sores and nerve damage in the arms, legs, and skin areas around the body (Gardner, 2017). Though the patience were housed for free, it wasn’t necessarily for their benefit but for others considering that the disease is contagious.
“In 1905, the state of Louisiana purchased the property, and the estate became the first home in the United States for leprosy patients (Christiansen, 2018).” By 1941, a doctor by the name of Dr. Guy Faget discovered sulfone which helped with healing the disease, and later updated drug treatments revealed that the house and the quarantine were no longer necessary (Christiansen, 2018). Once all the patients left The National Hansen’s Disease Museum was created and opened in 1999 (Christiansen, 2018). On the tour of the museum you’ll learn more about it’s history so if you are ever in the mood to grow your knowledge on the disease, patients, and how they lived make a trip to Carville, Louisiana.