Two Cases of Leprosy in Canada: Racial Identity Meets Disease Identity

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Two Cases of Leprosy in Canada: Racial Identity Meets Disease Identity




Meghan Lilly
7277635





December 7, 2016
Comparative History of Disease
Professor Lori Jones



Introduction:
During the latter half of the nineteenth century, two leper colonies were created in Canada in order to solve the challenges that the disease brought to the country. On the west coast, a lazaretto was created on d'Arcy Island off the coast of Victoria, and contained leprous Chinese migrant workers who were detained in the province. Across the country in New Brunswick, sufferers were held at Sheldrake Island, and eventually moved to a new facility at Tracadie. The ethnicity of the occupants was the most significant difference between the two Canadian lazarettos, and race occupied a precarious position during this time period in the country. Despite the hostile racial climate towards Chinese migrants in Canada in the nineteenth century, the stigma associated with the disease transcended racial barriers and led to a nearly complete isolation of victims of leprosy in both d'Arcy Island and Tracadie. In the case of leprosy during this time period, the disease identity was stronger than the racial identity for those afflicted, as both cases reflect the aspects that compose the classic stigma associated with the disease. For both cases, the stigma demonstrated and manifested itself in many ways. First, contemporary sources turned to the historical and moral element of the stigma to validate the isolation of the diseased from the rest of the community. Most significantly, the lepers in both lazarettos were perceived as threats to the public health of the community and focus was placed on the highly infectious nature of the disease. The lepers were considered to be outsiders and security measures within the lazarettos ensured that they were treated as inmates and prisoners who deserved some kind of punishment for their transgressions. Finally, the element of the unknown became a powerful influence in the growth of fear towards the disease in both cases, as a cure was not yet know and the situation often seemed hopeless.

The Case of Leprosy on the West Coast:
The confinement of Chinese migrant labourers suffering from leprosy at D'Arcy Island in British Columbia in the nineteenth century has been deemed "a sad chapter in Canada's medical history." The lazaretto was created at a time when Canadian society, especially on the west-coast, was hostile towards its Chinese population. The first Chinese migrants had arrived in Canada in the 1858, and the majority entered and remained on the nation's west coast, in British Columbia and Vancouver (then recognized as separate colonies). The migrating population was composed almost entirely of single males, who travelled to Canada in order to provide labour to the developing nation, and send their earnings back home to China. The workers were pulled towards Canada by the creation of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), and to fishing, canning and mining industries. By 1860, it was estimated that the Chinese population in British Columbia and Vancouver had grown to approximately 7,000 people, and by 1882, during the height of the construction of the CPR, it was estimated that this number grew to over 11,000 in Victoria alone. The sudden influx of a foreign Chinese population into western Canada caused resentment and hostility within the native population who viewed the Chinese as competition for employment.
In the following decades, the Canadian government enacted a series of legislation that aimed at limiting the extent of Chinese immigration into the country, making it nearly impossible for Chinese workers to enter the nation. A Chinese head tax was implemented in Canada in 1885, shortly after the completion of the CPR. The Canadian government had substantial access to inexpensive Chinese labour at this point, and the head tax demanded a fifty dollar fine for every Chinese who wished to enter the country. Over time, the head tax was raised to 500 dollars per individual, making it practically impossible for Chinese immigration to occur. Additional Canadian legislation was passed in the following decades, "disallowing them to acquire Crown lands, preventing them from working in underground mines, excluding them from admission to the provincially established home for the aged and infirm, and prohibiting them from being hired to do public work, as well as disqualifying them from voting." The legislation effectively barred the wives of Chinese labourers from making the trip to Canada, and the lack of a female presence within the Chinese community would have increased their visibility towards the Canadian population. Official federal and provincial legislation in Canada during the nineteenth century effectively isolated the Chinese community from society and added to the hostility felt towards the population. It was in this tense racial situation that the lazaretto was built at D'Arcy Island to contain Chinese lepers.
The leper colony at D'Arcy Island off the coast of Victoria was created by the municipal government after five Chinese lepers were found to be sheltering themselves in a shack in China Town. Yorath remarks that he is surprised that the five lepers had not been detained at this point, as inspections by medical authorities of the Chinese community of Victoria were routine, and the disease in many of the victims was in its late and obvious stages, resulting in physical disfigurements and total lack of sensation in the extremities. Two others escaped deportation by committing suicide or evading the authorities. In 1891, the lepers were forcibly removed from Victoria and set up on the small island, where they would spend the next decades in solitude and isolation, rejected by the authorities and the white population of Canada. The lepers were visited by authorities and medical practitioners only once every three months, and this was sometimes extended to four in certain circumstances. They were given enough food, supplies and shelter to brave the elements and to sustain the most basic form of life. According to Yorath, the "arrangements were better than they otherwise could have expected," and "at the very least they would die not of starvation or exposure, but rather from disease and medical neglect."


The Case of Leprosy on the East Coast:
According to various contemporary sources, leprosy was first found in Canada in the province of New Brunswick. While most sources agree on this fact, there is a considerable discrepancy as to how the disease made its way into the province and who it proceeded to infect in the region. Two women in New Brunswick were suspected to suffer of 'Greek Elephantiasis' in 1815, and both succumbed to the disease by 1830. The two women were not related and it is unlikely that they ever came into contact with each other, and they continued to pass the disease onto family members in the following years. One of the women, Ursule Landry, gained the most attention in contemporary sources and is widely recognized as the first person living in Canada to contract the disease. Many different stories circulated at the time as to how the disease entered into eastern Canada. This fact alone increased the level of fear and dread felt by the community towards the disease.
An article published by the Canadian Medical Association noted that "the origin of leprosy in New Brunswick is shrouded in mystery." According to the article, published shortly after the closing of the lazarettos in Canada, most accounts of how Landry contracted the disease revolved around foreigners bringing the contagion to Canada. One contended that Landry had contracted the disease from washing the clothes of sailors from France, while another argues that two Norwegian refugees who had escaped from a lazaretto in Europe passed on the disease after spending some time with Ursule and her husband. M.J. Losier speculates that the existence of the disease in Canada may have roots in the expulsion of the Acadians from the Maritimes in the mid-eighteenth century. The author argues that the Acadians would have been susceptible to the disease as they arrived in Louisiana, and that it could have been carried back to Tracadie unknowingly in the years following their return. After this point, the disease may have gone undiagnosed or the victim could have died having never shown symptoms. Once contracted by the two women, the disease spread within their families and into the community. It is believed that three additional people contracted leprosy from Mrs. Gardiner, while Ursule spread the disease to a number of people. In any case, the fear within the community of contracting the disease prompted action from religious figures and medical authorities, leading to the creation of a lazaretto at Sheldrake Island, which was eventually moved to Tracadie.

Historical and Religious Elements of Stigma:
In Canada during the nineteenth century, anxiety about the disease often took a moral element. History was used as a means to legitimize the isolation of those suffering with the disease. The ancient disease of leprosy was also strongly associated with the bible and Christianity, and this association continued into the nineteenth century, when leprosy appeared in Canada. According to C.J. Yorath, who documented the development of the leper colony at D'Arcy Island, the profound stigma associated with leprosy in Canada in the nineteenth century was "due as much to the rebirth of ancient biblical beliefs as it was a product of direct observation and consequent fear of association."
Leprosy was largely considered to be a sign of sin, and those who contracted it were supposedly receiving God's ultimate punishment for their transgressions. The disease was mentioned in the bible in Leviticus 13, which reads, "now the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn and his head bare; and he shall cover his moustache, and cry, "Unclean! Unclean!" He shall be unclean. He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone; his habitation shall be outside the camp." In this excerpt, it is the priest that casts the unclean leper from society. According to Kalisch, "leprosy was regarded by many as symbolically signifying sin and was commonly referred to as the disease of death." He argues that the fear of infection and contraction most commonly associated with infectious diseases was "oftentimes reinforced and overladen by religious fear." This element of the stigma of leprosy functioned to separate the community from the sufferer on moral grounds and led to a sense of condescension, while also instilling a deep fear of contracting the disease for religious reasons. Kalisch argues that this negative perception of the disease "served to confirm the superiority of virtue over vice and was characteristic of societal attitudes." These fears are evident in contemporary sources that discuss the existence of the disease in Canada.
In an article published in Victoria's Daily Colonist in November of 1891, the author reflects on the long history of the disease of leprosy and its association with religion, writing;
In history it is recorded that the Hebrews brought the disease with them into Palestine, and the stringent provisions of the Mosaic law show how dreadful must have been the terror it excited on the inhabitants of that period. This was brought about from the fearful ravages of the disease. In that distant day the separation of those afflicted with the disease was rigidly enforced, and so strictly was this rule carried out that even kings were expelled from their thrones and shut out from society and their friends.

In this way, the article lends legitimacy to the isolation of the lepers at D'Arcy Island through the use of historical evidence of its popular use. It also invokes the feeling that no man was safe from the disease, as even kings could contract it and lose their position in society as a consequence.


Fear of Infection and Contamination:
The creation of the lazaretto at both D'Arcy Island and Tracadie served a distinct function and solved one of the most central elements of the stigma associated with the disease. Throughout history, leprosy has been strongly associated with negative characteristics that have created a stigma and has led to the isolation of sufferers of the disease. This appears to be common across both time and space, and historians and other scholars have attempted to locate the cause of this phenomenon, resulting in many different theories, which are all present in one way or another in the case of the lazaretto at d'Arcy and Tracadie. At the most basic level, leprosy's strong association with infection has instilled fear in populations of contracting the dreaded disease. Furthermore, leprosy has been associated with certain negative traits, such as uncleanliness, poverty and venereal disease. According to Philip Kalisch, the "fundamental irrational fear of leprosy rests particularly on a morbid and instinctive terror of infection." He argues that "it was the predominant view that leprosy was dirty, venereal, highly infectious, and facilitated by bad hygiene and sexual promiscuousness." Therefore, the fear of infection became not only about contracting a deadly disease and the medical challenges that came with it, but about the negative consequences that would be associated with your character if the community found out. This element can be separated into two parts, the first being the fear of infection, and the second being the fear of being associated with negative connotations that went hand-in-hand with a diagnosis. Both of these fears are evident in sources from D'Arcy and Tracadie during the nineteenth century.
The isolation of the Chinese lepers on a secluded island in the San Juan archipelago served the function of satisfying the public and health professionals that the disease would not spread throughout the population of Victoria. The lepers were most often forcibly removed from their homes and surroundings in order to protect the community around them. This is evident in publications in the Victoria Daily Colonist as the location of the lazaretto was discussed and eventually chosen as a place of banishment for the Chinese lepers. According to the Daily Colonist, the isolation of the victims on the island was "necessary for sanitary reasons." While an outbreak of the disease amongst the Asian population was threatening, it was clear that the primary concern was for the white population who lived in proximity to the Chinese community of Victoria. The Daily Colonist reported on June 16, 1895 that "it is not so very long ago that this lazaretto was established by the municipal government of Victoria, in order to prevent the spread of the loathsome disease among the Asiatic population and its possible transmission to the whites."
The justification of the creation of the lazaretto at Sheldrake Island and later at Tracadie in New Brunswick followed a similar logical process. Official documents and correspondences found in the Journals of the Legislative Council of the Province of New Brunswick offer some insight into the motivations behind the establishment of the leper colony. They reveal not only a fear for the community of Tracadie and surrounding areas, but also a concern for the lepers who were being confined to their homes by their families in order to avoid being found and diagnosed with the disease. In 1844, the Lieutenant Governor recommended to the legislative council "that provision should be made for the due care of the sufferers, and with the view to prevent the spread of this distemper." Fear erupted in the community, and the spread of the disease was tracked by the local newspapers, who reported that the issue was of "paramount importance" because the "disease was rapidly approaching our more densely populated districts and is now only twenty-four miles from Chatham." A medical article written in 1924 documented that the lazaretto was created in 1844 as a result of the fear of the spread of the disease by the population of New Brunswick. According to Kalisch, the Board of Health in charge of the initial lazaretto at Sheldrake Island "continued to enunciate vigorously its singular purpose of protecting the public from contagion, accordingly, and to let the widening social and political controversies take the hindmost."
On the 21st of February, 1844, the provincial grand jury of New Brunswick decided that "the safety of the public health, no less than the cause of humanity, demand that some effort should be made to relieve and succour these afflicted creates, other than the shocking mode now used." And the mode then used was indeed quite shocking. The journals describe the treatment of leprosy victims before the establishment of the lazaretto, which involved being shunned from the community and neighbours. It is recorded that lepers in the community would be confined to a log structure created in order to isolate him, and would be passed food through a crack until he grew too weak to receive it, and the community would then know that he had succumbed to the disease. The creation of the lazaretto on the east coast solved both of these problems temporarily, as challenges continued to arise as the authorities sought ways to ensure that the lepers could not escape their holdings in the facility.

The Criminalization of the Leprosy Patient:
Authorities were concerned with ensuring that the lepers were not able to escape from the island, and supervision of the prisoners became a priority that was discussed by medical practitioners in the newspapers. In an interview with a Daily Colonist reporter, Dr. Milne, a medical officer who visited the lazaretto at d'Arcy Island on occasion, discussed the issue of needing increased levels of supervision on the island to ensure that the lepers did not escape and return back into society. He determined that the Dominion needed to assume a greater role in protecting the community from the disease by allotting a portion of the revenue gained through the taxation of incoming Chinese emigrants to the protection of the leper colony. In his opinion, there were two actions that the Dominion government could take in order to protect the spread of leprosy in Canada, and they were as following: "(1): Thorough and careful inspection on the arrival of Chinese emigrants," and (2): the "complete isolation and supervision of those we have amongst us." Ultimately it was the fear of contagion and infection that led the Victoria municipal government to isolate the Chinese lepers at d'Arcy Island, which became a more important and urgent matter than their race.
It is evident that the authorities who controlled the lazaretto at Sheldrake Island and at Tracadie went to great lengths to ensure that the inmates could not escape the premises, and measures increased in severity as multiple escapes occurred. Multiple escapes occurred from the first lazaretto at Sheldrake Island, as victims created rafts out of logs and sailed into the ocean to escape imprisonment in the facility. Kalisch argues that these escapees did not have favourable chances in the outside world, as "his approach was dreaded, every door was shut in his face; everything he touched was regarded as polluted; and the whole countryside directed and assisted the officers sent to hunt him down." Upon escaping the Sheldrake lazaretto, a young man was hunted down at his home and torn from his family by a board member and the constable who "bound him with ropes," and "presented a pistol to his breast, and thus enforced submission." The threat of infecting the community essentially transformed the escaped leper into a fugitive, removing his sense of humanity and making him the property of the provincial government.
At the new facility constructed at Tracadie as a response to the escapes and the poor housing at Sheldrake, the authorities took further measures to ensure that the lepers did not find the opportunity to run away. On January 15, 1851, the board agreed that the erection of a wall around the lazaretto was necessary to deter attempts at escape. It would be 12 feet high, and would "prevent, as far as possible, all intercourse with the other part of the community." Following the burning of Tracadie to the ground by an angry occupant, the Board of Health reported that, "it will be necessary to erect a larger building early next summer similar to the one which was burnt; but to be built more secure, with iron gratings on the windows." He continued, "if such a building were erected, the patients could be locked in every night at a certain hour, and thereby prevent all intercourse with the other part of the community, as none of them have every attempted to make their escape in the day time." Finally, visits from family were eventually decreased from one a month to twice a year as the authorities believed that the visits led to increased incidences of escape. These additional measures transformed the suffering patient into a prisoner who was being punished by medical authorities because of a disease that they had no control over.
An act of Canadian legislation passed in 1906 entitled "An Act Respecting Leprosy" extended the powers of the Governor in Council of Canada to take actions against lepers concealing themselves in the community, those who escaped from a lazaretto and those who harboured escaped lepers like fugitives. The act was applicable to the lazarettos on both coasts of the nation, as D'Arcy Island was finally brought under the jurisdiction of the national government. The act certainly reflects the belief that the lepers were serving a sentence for their transgressions, as they are referred to as 'inmates' in multiple clauses. The act dictated that every person suspected of contracting the disease would endure examination by a medical professional under the law, and that "every person in Canada found to be afflicted with leprosy may be confined in a lazaretto for lepers." Any leper who resisted confinement in a facility could be brought in front of a judge and sentenced to enter the lazaretto. Once committed, the leper would remain in the lazaretto until the "medical superintendent or officer in charge of the lazaretto certifies that it is safe for him to be discharged and to be at large." The words 'discharge' and 'at large' certainly invoke scenes from a prison, not a medical facility. Those who were caught harboring an escaped leper could face charges from ten to one-hundred dollars, or "imprisonment for a period not exceeding six months and not less than one month, with or without hard labour." While the act aimed at regulating the treatment of lepers in the nation, it essentially hardened the perception that lepers were doing their time for their transgressions and that their release back into society posed a great enough threat that drastic measures needed to be taken in order to protect the community.

The Mystery of Leprosy and a Primary Source Analysis of the Victoria Daily Colonist:
The fear of infection was intensified by a lack of knowledge about the cause of the disease and the method of transmission that persisted through the nineteenth and some of the twentieth century. While select medical practitioners condoned the practice of isolating leprosy patients and insisted that the disease was not highly contagious, others believed that it posed a substantial threat to the community through contagion. A popular debate in among doctors in Canada in the mid-nineteenth century questioned whether leprosy was hereditary or contagious. The fact that the disease occurred most prevalently within families led some medical doctors to conclude that it was passed from one generation to another, while others argued that this was simply evidence that the disease occurred among groups who spent extended periods of time together. Other theories combined the two arguments, and an article published in 1976 determined that it was believed in the mid-nineteenth century that there were two elements to contracting the disease, "the causative agent and susceptibility." Some popular theories at the time accused tropical climates of creating a dangerous atmosphere for the disease to breed, while others determined that the bacteria lived within the soil. While it became increasingly clear at the end of the century that contagion played a large role in the transmission of the disease, leprosy was not fully understood until very recently. This created a sense of mystery around the disease that increased levels of fear and further isolated the victim.
In November of 1891, the Victorian Colonist published an interview with the medical officer of Victoria, George Milne. This particular newspaper is valuable in studying the history of Victoria as it published an issue daily since 1860. The paper was founded by Nova Scotian Amor de Cosmos in Victoria in 1858, was initially titled The British Colonist, and remained the central news source on the west coast of Canada until its supremacy was challenged by the Victoria Daily Times at the end of the century. The paper did not remain in the hands of de Cosmos for long, as he sold it to his employees shortly after it began publishing daily. After this point, the paper was passed from owner to owner, and by 1887, the publication dropped the "British" from its name and became simply The Daily Colonist. This particular article does not disclose an author, but took up a considerable amount of space, occupying both sides of a large advertisement on the third page of the paper. The paper functions as a valuable primary source as it is a measure of both public opinion and the motivations of particular individuals during this time period as related to the perceptions of the Chinese in British Columbia in general, and towards the Chinese lepers in particular.
The interviewer in this article is speaking to a G.L. Milne, who was then the Victoria Medical Health Officer. Other than in this article, Milne is mentioned infrequently in the sources as he served in this position for only one year, from 1891-1892. This was the year that the lazaretto was established at d'Arcy Island and he played substantive role in confirming the diagnosis within the Chinese population and establishing the leper colony. Yorath documents that Milne would have been one of the few medical officers and personnel to visit the lepers at D'Arcy Island in order to transport supplies and check on the status of the diseased. G.L. Milne was replaced in his position at the end of 1892 by Dr. G.H. Duncan. The information about the leper colony sourced from the doctor is valuable as it is documented that he did have a first-hand interaction with the lepers at D'Arcy Island on many occasions and would have been one of the only people to do so. On the other hand, his testaments about the Chinese lepers suffering on the island do glorify the work of the municipal government of Victoria for taking the victims to a safe place and providing them with shelter and food. His responses in the article downplay the experience of the Chinese leper as his experience was likely tainted by anti-Chinese prejudice that was prevalent in Victoria at the time that they article was written. According to Milne, the lepers on the island seemed "very contented and happy, and well pleased with the kindness shown them by our city authorities." His interview also reaches out to the Dominion of Canada to provide aid in caring for the lepers of Victoria, and he proposes that the government become more involved in the issue.
The article itself goes in-depth into the challenges that leprosy posed to Canadian medical officers in the nineteenth century in diagnosing, classifying and understanding the causes of leprosy. Milne addresses and disputes some common explanations of the disease, such as the influence of a tropical climate, the consumption of bad foods (especially fish), and the hereditary nature of the disease, which he considered to be "a disputed question." When asked about the effect of a tropical climate on the occurrence and transmission of the disease, Milne responds that this theory is unlikely as leprosy was "found amidst the sunny hills of India as well as on the cold sea coast of New Brunswick." He argues that there may be some validity to the theory that "the disease is due mainly to dietetic causes, and that the poison is introduced into the blood by some article of food." He points out that this article of food is usually fish, and that this would explain the occurrence of leprosy on the east coast in Tracadie, as the community there consumed large quantities of fish in their diet. As to the question of the hereditary nature of the disease, Milne points out that there have been born children of leprous parents who never contracted the disease, as well as those who did contract it while none of their family members demonstrated any symptoms. Milne proposes that the most likely cause of the disease is contagion, and that therefore isolation is the most effective and necessary treatment of the disease as no known cure was established. This article demonstrates the uncertainty and mystery that continued to characterize the disease in the nineteenth century.
Medical Doctor J.D. Page noted in 1924 that there were "two striking features" about the disease of leprosy in both cases in Canada. One, he argued, was "the difficulty and sometimes the impossibility of tracing the time and source of contamination, which may go back many years." Second, he noted, was the "apparent inability of the average physician to recognize the disease even in its later stages." Indeed, during the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, physicians and researchers who frequented the lazaretto were mystified by the cause and the treatment of the disease. In the diagnosis stage, leprosy was often confused with syphilis, and a leprosy specialist who worked within the lazaretto at Tracadie declared that many of the cases had been diagnosed wrong and that the venereal disease was actually the correct diagnosis. This doctor was eventually discredited and accused of bringing healthy patients into the lazaretto in order to prove that the disease was curable. Because there was no known cure, the situation of the leper was considered to be a hopeless one. At Tracadie, various attempts were made to treat the conditions of the lepers but none were successful. The patients were largely resistant to internal methods of treatment, that likely would have had little effect anyways. By the 1860s, the most effective method of treatment included taking mysterious vapours and exercising in the outdoors, under strict supervision of course. The element of the unknown was a central element to the stigma associated with the disease in both D'Arcy Island and Tracadie.
The appearance of leprosy in Canada during the nineteenth century sparked reaction among both the public and medical authorities, who perceived the necessity to address the problem. Chinese lepers were found hiding in Victoria's Chinatown and a lazaretto was constructed at D'Arcy Island in order to isolate the problem. This occurred in the late nineteenth century, when nativist hostility towards Chinese migrant labourers was reaching a peak on the west coast of Canada. In New Brunswick, a lazaretto was created at Sheldrake Island in 1844 and then moved to Tracadie in 1849 to contain the largely French-Canadian leprous population of the east coast. In both cases, the disease identity associated with leprosy was strong and the sufferers were cast away from their communities on similar premises, despite a difference in race and national belonging. Despite the racial element in nineteenth-century western Canada that targeted Chinese migrant workers, the stigma associated with leprosy transcended racial barriers as the disease identity was a stronger form of isolation than ethnicity was.
The sufferers of leprosy in both D'Arcy Island and Tracadie were treated in a way that reflected the most common elements of the stigma associated with the disease in the nineteenth century. They were perceived as an impending threat to the health of the community around them as they were considered to be highly infectious. Victims of the disease at both lazarettos were treated as prisoners who had committed a sin and were deserving of punishment and condescension. In both cases, measures to ensure their confinement by the government and medical officials turned the patients into inmates and isolated them from their sense of humanity. Finally, both cases were characterized by a sense of hopelessness as a lack of knowledge about the cause and transmission of the disease instilled fear in those around the lepers and furthered their isolation.





Work Cited:
"An Act Respecting Leprosy," The Revised Statutes of Canada, 1906, proclaimed and published under the authority of the act 3 Edward Vii., chapter 61.

Claborn, David. "Incarceration and Isolation of the Innocent for Reasons of Public Health." Journal of the Institute of Justice and International Studies 11 (2011): 75-86.


Johnston, P. "B.C.'s 'Island of Death' Marked a Sad Chapter in Canada's Medical History," Canadian Medical Association Journal 152 (1995): 951-952.


Kalisch, Philip A. "Tracadie and Pekinese Leprosaria: A Comparative Analysis of Societal Response to Leprosy in New Brunswick, 1844-1880, and Massachusetts, 1904-1921." A Bulletin of the History of Medicine 47 (1973): 480-512.


Kato, Laszlo and Jocelyne Marchand. "Leprosy: 'Loathsome Disease in Tracadie, New Brunswick'- A Glimpse into the Past." Canadian Medical Association Journal 114 (1976): 440-442.


"Lazaretto at Tracadie: Report of the Secretary for the Year 1852." Journals of the House of Assembly of the Province of New Brunswick.


Li, Peter. "Reconciling with History: The Chinese-Canadian Head Tax Redress," Journal of Chinese Overseas 4 (2008): 127-140.


Losier, M. J. and C. Pinet. Children of the Lazarus: The Story of the Lazaretto at Tracadie. Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 1984.


"Message to the House of Assembly, 20th February, 1844." Journals of the Legislative Council of the Province of New Brunswick.


Page, J.D. "Leprosy in Canada." Canadian Medical Association Journal 14 (1924): 824-825.


"Report on Lazaretto Establishment at Tracadie, January 15, 1851." Journals of the House of Assembly of the Province of New Brunswick.

"The British Colonist Online Edition: Context" University of Victoria, Libraries. Accessed 12/05/16. http://www.britishcolonist.ca/context.php.


Victoria Daily Colonist, June 16, 1895.


Victoria Daily Colonist, May 15, 1891.


Victoria Daily Colonist, November 29, 1981.


Whitehead, F.L. "Leprosy in New Brunswick: The End of an Era." Canadian Medical Association Journal 97 (1967): 1299-3000.


Yorath, C.J. A Measure of Value: The Story of the D'Arcy Island Leper Colony. Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2000.








This essay will be limited to the time period of the establishment of the lazarettos at both D'Arcy and Tracadie, as the leper colonies underwent great changes in the following decades under the jurisdiction of the Canadian government. For the discussion of D'Arcy, this period begins in the early 1890s and ends in 1906 with the passing of the Leprosy Act. The discussion of the Tracadie lazaretto begins in 1815, when the disease was first recognized, and ends with the Leprosy Act (1906).
P. Johnston, "B.C.'s 'Island of Death' Marked a Sad Chapter in Canada's Medical History," Canadian Medical Association Journal 152 (1995): 951.
C.J. Yorath, A Measure of Value: The Story of the D'Arcy Island Leper Colony (Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2000): 67.
Ibid, 67.
Ibid, 67.
Ibid, 67.
Peter Li, "Reconciling with History: The Chinese-Canadian Head Tax Redress," Journal of Chinese Overseas 4 (2008): 127.
Ibid, 128.
Ibid, 128.
Ibid, 128.
Ibid, 128.
Yorath, A Measure of Value, 73.
Ibid, 73.
Ibid, 76.
Ibid, 73.
Ibid, 73.
Ibid, 76.
M. J. Losier and C. Pinet, Children of the Lazarus: The Story of the Lazaretto at Tracadie (Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 1984): xi.
Ibid, xi.
Ibid, 3.
F.L. Whitehead, "Leprosy in New Brunswick: The End of an Era," Canadian Medical Association Journal 97 (1967): 1299.
Ibid, 1299.
Losier and Pinet, Children of the Lazarus, 5.
Ibid, 5.
Ibid, 5.
Yorath, A Measure of Value, 55.
Ibid, 55.
Excerpt from Leviticus 13, found in David Claborn, "Incarceration and Isolation of the Innocent for Reasons of Public Health," Journal of the Institute of Justice and International Studies 11 (2011): 75.
Kalisch, "Tracadie and Pekinese Leprosaria," 501.
Ibid, 501.
Ibid, 501.
Victoria Daily Colonist, November 29, 1981.
Philip A. Kalisch, "Tracadie and Pekinese Leprosaria: A Comparative Analysis of Societal Response to Leprosy in New Brunswick, 1844-1880, and Massachusetts, 1904-1921," A Bulletin of the History of Medicine 47 (1973): 502.
Ibid, 502.
Ibid, 502.
Victoria Daily Colonist, May 15, 1891.
Victoria Daily Colonist, June 16, 1895.
"Message to the House of Assembly, 20th February, 1844" Journals of the Legislative Council of the Province of New Brunswick, 84.
Ibid.
Laszlo Kato and Jocelyne Marchand, "Leprosy: 'Loathsome Disease in Tracadie, New Brunswick'- A Glimpse into the Past" Canadian Medical Association Journal 114 (1976): 440.
J.D. Page, "Leprosy in Canada," Canadian Medical Association Journal 14 (1924): 824.
Kalisch, "Tracadie and Pekinese Leprosaria," 489.
Journal of Assembly, 1844, p. 84.
Ibid.
Victoria Daily Colonist, November 29, 1891.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Kalisch, "Tracadie and Pekinese Leprosaria," 487.
Ibid, 488.
Kalisch, "Tracadie and Pekinese Leprosaria," 488.
"Report on Lazaretto Establishment at Tracadie, January 15, 1851" Journals of the House of Assembly of the Province of New Brunswick, clxiii.
"Lazaretto at Tracadie: Report of the Secretary for the Year 1852" Journals of the House of Assembly of the Province of New Brunswick, clxiii.
Ibid.
Kalisch, "Tracadie and Pekinese Leprosaria," 505.
"An Act Respecting Leprosy," The Revised Statutes of Canada, 1906, proclaimed and published under the authority of the act 3 Edward Vii., chapter 61.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
M. J. Losier and C. Pinet, Children of the Lazarus: The Story of the Lazaretto at Tracadie (Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 1984): 30.
Losier and Pinet, Children of the Lazarus, 30.
Kato and Marchand, "Leprosy," 441.
Ibid.
"The British Colonist Online Edition: Context" University of Victoria, Libraries. Accessed 12/05/16.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Yorath, A Measure of Value, 71.
Yorath, A Measure of Value, 71.
Ibid, 71.
Ibid, 89.
Victoria Daily Colonist, November 29, 1891.
Victoria Daily Colonist, November 29, 1891.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
J.D. Page, "Leprosy in Canada," Canadian Medical Association Journal 14 (1924): 824.
Page, "Leprosy in Canada," 824.
Ibid.
Kalisch, "Tracadie and Pekinese Leprosaria," 499.
Ibid, 499.
Ibid, 499.