Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008 - (Page 78)

Lost Gardens of the National Leprosarium Louisiana’s leper colony was the site of creativity borne from captivity formed a “hospital culture” that included religious worship, civic It was out of captive creativity that patients fashioned and veterans’ organizations, sports and free enterprise — from geometric patterned Coca-Cola bottle gardens on the grounds of bootlegging to beekeeping — while praying for advances in the National Leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana. In the 1940s, medicine that would eventually come under the administration of patients, then under mandatory quarantine, pushed the the U.S. Public Health Service. refundable bottles neck-first into the blackjack soil, forming A group of green thumbs even chartered a Garden Club and garden borders in the shape of stars, triangles and undulating patients called dibs on the grounds surrounding the dormitories to curves.The distributor, a leprophobe, would not refund bottles out grow vegetables, exotic fruits and flowers. The resulting produce of fear that Coke drinkers nationwide would desert in droves if fueled a home canning rage — it was a way for patients to they discovered the “Carville” connection. That was back in the supplement the sameness of cafeteria food and supply a modicum pre-drug therapy days, when Hansen’s disease (leprosy) was of self-determinism in the ordered world of institutional living. viewed as an incurable scourge. The Coke bottle gardens are long gone, dug up by patients Since the 1940s, Hansen’s disease is a treatable, outpatient who received refunds from an enterprising Pepsi distributor. diagnosis and uncommon in the United States. In 1999, the Carville’s days of hospital relocated to quarantine may be past Baton Rouge where but its evidence treatment and remains. To this day, research continue. shards from the lost Nevertheless, at one gardens are regularly time the diagnosis unearthed when work warranted a one-way crews dig near the ticket to the National dormitories; broken Leprosarium. bottles glitter in the The vision of the daylight and stories of National Hansen's “the old days” get told Disease Museum is to again. support the National In an ironic twist, Hansen's Disease the only remaining Programs in its effort bottle garden rests in to enhance the the patient cemetery, public’s beyond the dormitories, understanding of the on the other side of history, treatment and Cottage Grove where rehabilitation of married patients built leprosy in the United bungalows. When the States, and to museum documented commemorate those the 743 footstones in who lived at the 2007, staff discovered national leprosarium A Hansen’s disease patient gardens on the grounds of one grave ringed with as patients, as well as the National Leprosarium in the mid 1940s. upended bottles. Who the health care was this patient and professionals who why do Coca-Cola bottles mark his final resting place? Only his made medical history as they battled leprosy. family would have access to his medical records to know whether The museum's mission is to collect, preserve and interpret the the name chiseled on his tombstone is his birth name or his medical and cultural artifacts of the Carville Historic District and to “Carville name,” aliases taken by patients to spare family members promote the understanding, identification and treatment of shame by association. Patients were encouraged to protect the Hansen's Disease (leprosy) by creating and maintaining museum families they left behind by obscuring their identities. There are displays, traveling exhibits, publications and a Web site in order to many mysteries still buried on the 400-acre site, along with the educate and inform the public. remnants of lives forever changed by a sentence of quarantine. Many patients, separated from their communities of origin 78 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Summer 2008 PHOTO BY JOHNNY HARMON

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008 Contents Friends Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities George Rodrigue’s Louisiana: Cajuns, Blue Dogs & Beyond Katrina The Historic New Orleans Collection After The Flood Faubourg Marigny: The Creole “Suburb” Preserving New Orleans Jazz, One Generation at a Time: Conversation & Music with Tom Sancton Louisiana Foodways Louisiana Architecture Baton Rouge Photographs, 1863-1910 Jazz Notes The Ogden Museum of Southern Art Louisiana Association of Museums Nature of the “Beast” Louisiana State Museum Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008

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