Leprosy Island Hawaii
A tiny number of hansens disease patients still remain at kalaupapa a leprosarium established in 1866 on a remote but breathtakingly beautiful spit of land on the hawaiian island of molokai.
Leprosy island hawaii. Either way by 1865 leprosy was common enough that the government tried to halt its spread by sentencing patients to involuntary life time isolation at kalaupapa on the island of molokai. Kalaupapa is a small unincorporated community on the island of molokai within kalawao county in the us. First appearance the specific date at which leprosy arrived in the islands is not known nor is it certain by whom was brought.
A collective memory by anwei skinsnes law at the beginning of june 1866 87 people were sentenced to exile at kalawao a small settlement. Set in hawaii more than a century ago molokai tells the tale of a little girl named rachel who lives a happy life on the island of oahu until one day a red mark appears on her body. The hawaiian name for the disease was mai pake which means chinese sickness.
The legislation requiring life time involuntary isolation continued until 1969. People with leprosy were only treated as outpatients after 1974. In 1866 during the reign of kamehameha v the hawaii legislature passed a law that resulted in the designation of molokai as the site for a leper colony where patients who were seriously affected by leprosy could be quarantined to prevent them from infecting others.
The parliament introduced a bill to prohibit its spread on january 3 1865. Others claim it was spread by a hawaiian king who acquired it while abroad and brought it home. The manifestation of the disease was unsightly and scary the cause and the treatment unknown.
When it was closed many residents chose to remain. Just 16 leprosy patients remain at kalaupapa a remote community on the hawaiian island. She discovers she has leprosy actually called hansens disease and at the age of 7 is sent off alone to the island of molokai leper colony known as kalaupapa where she will spend the rest of her life.
As early as 1823 missionaries were noting remediless and disgusting cases that might have involved some aspects of leprosy as well as syphilis. Leprosy in hawaii in 1852 began the immigration of chinese sugar field workers to hawaii and it is believed that they brought leprosy to the islands. Molokai hawaii usa europeans began recording leprosy in hawaii early in the nineteenth century.
Six of these patients still live sequestered out of the 16. It was believed to be highly contagious and was. Kalaupapa on the island of molokai is hawaiis leprosy colony where 8000 people were sent into exile over the course of a century.
Some say it was spread by foreign laborers. At the time the disease was little understood.