Mile 191.5 RBD — 191 LBD White Castle-Carville Ferry

Not in operation Fall 2015

Carville

Carville is the location of the National Hansen’s Disease Museum, in the old U. S. Public Health Service, which for a hundred years treated leprosy (now called Hansen's Disease) patients. The hospital has been closed, but several of the buildings remain. Paddlers will be interested to hear of Carville’s history, which was the setting for the 2010 Book In the Sanctuary of Outcasts, by Neil White. From Publishers Weekly: Following conviction for bank fraud, White spent a year in a minimum-security prison in Carville, La., housed in the last leper colony in mainland America. His fascinating memoir reflects on the sizable group of lepers living alongside the prisoners, social outcasts among the motley inmate crew of drug dealers, mob types and killers. Narrating in colorful, entertaining snapshots, White introduces the reader to an excellent supporting cast in his imprisonment: Father Reynolds, the peerless spiritual monk; Mr. Flowers, the no-nonsense case manager; Anne, the sorrowful mother with leprosy whose baby was taken from her arms; and Ella the Earth Mother, with wisdom to spare. Brisk, ironic and perceptive, White's introspective memoir puts a magnifying glass to a flawed life, revealing that all of life is to be savored and respected. (Publishers Weekly)

On the last day of November, 1894, a boat left the New Orleans dock pushing a barge with an unusual cargo. On the barge were seven very ill people, several doctors, and some newspaper reporters. The seven passengers were suffering from the dreaded disease that was then known as leprosy, and they were being moved from an abominable "pest house" in New Orleans to a plantation about 25 miles below Baton Rouge, called Indian Camp plantation. The State of Louisiana hoped to give them better care and more humane treatment than they had ever known before. From this uncertain beginning in 1894, there eventually developed a U. S. Public Health Service Hospital at Carville, Louisiana, where patients suffering from the ancient disease that has recently been renamed "Hansen's disease," are treated and often discharged to lead normal lives in their home communities. When the U. S. Public Health Service acquired the State facility at Carville in 1921, the old hospital at Indian Camp plantation was gradually converted into a modern treatment and research center. New drugs and better methods of treatment in recent years have made it possible for most of Carville's patients to be discharged in a very short time. For patients who must undergo long periods of hospitalization, the U. S. Public Health Service offers a rehabilitation program that is designed to help them to become contributing members of society when they return to their homes. Full-time teachers give elementary and high school courses at the hospital, arrangements are often made for vocational training or college work, and every effort is made to encourage the patient to upgrade the level of his educational achievements. A swimming pool, tennis courts, golf course, and a lake where patients can enjoy fishing and boating are located on the hospital grounds at Carville. Many social and recreational activities are sponsored, and a bimonthly magazine, The Star, is staffed with patients. A recent breakthrough in laboratory research at Carville offers some hope for progress toward the development for a cure for Hansen's disease. In the meantime, seminars and workshops keep doctors, nurses, therapists, social workers, and medical missionaries informed about the most effective drugs and the best methods for treating the disease and caring for the patients. Admission to the hospital at Carville is voluntary, and patients are free to leave at any time they desire to do so. They are, of course, encouraged to stay until discharge can be recommended by the medical staff. At present the hospital has about 300 patients, with perhaps 100 out on passes and leading relatively normal lives elsewhere with the disease under control. Visitors over the age of 16 are welcomed at the hospital. Carville's cheerful atmosphere is a far cry from the old "pest house" of the past that was maintained for the purpose of confining involuntarily persons whose only crime was that they had become the victims of a serious disease for which no cure was known. (Braggs)