Seperating Sickness

Nardos Yosef

Anlicker

English 1102

14 November 2016

The article we were assigned to read this week was called ‘The Separating Sickness’. The title is appropriate because it discusses how people with diseases and people with disabilities are separated because of society’s perception of them. The diseases not only have a physical effect on them but also emotional.

            The article focuses mainly on the disease of leprosy. It gives an anecdote about a man named Eddie Bacon. He was a forklift driver in Alaska who developed mysterious rashes on his body. After seeing the doctor and being prescribed medication, nothing was changing. He became weak and started losing weight-he even began having trouble seeing. One day he ended up passing out and was rushed to the emergency room. No one knew what was wrong with him. Four weeks later, he was finally diagnosed: he had leprosy. Eddie Bacon was luckily diagnosed in time to get proper treatment. He also states that his body suffered irreversible damage which includes losing an eye, both feet, and scarring on his arms and legs. He luckily is alive and healthy, and even ended up getting married.

            Leprosy is not a common disease in the US. Only 173 out of a quarter million people were diagnosed with leprosy in America. He was sent to America’s largest leprosy clinic in Louisiana. The clinic was called the Louisiana Leper Home. Up until the late 1940’s and 50’s, people with leprosy were denied basic rights such as the right to vote, marry, live with uninfected spouses or to even leave the hospital.

            Society and its response to people with illnesses like leprosy is another disease. In Hawaii, people who suffered from leprosy were hunted down and were offered a choice to either be exiled or killed. It was not until doctors realized the leprosy was the least contagious disease that the perception of people with leprosy was changed. The drug Promin was a painful injection that improved the symptoms of leprosy dramatically. Leprosy is now curable within a year or two worldwide.

             Today, leprosy researchers focus on the care of patients. Although the disease does damage tissue and scar the skin, researchers realized that the cured patients were getting injured more than people who have never suffered from leprosy. They would literally injure themselves doing normal tasks that people do. Researchers began focusing more on rehabilitation and how to help heal the victims of this disease.

            I believe that people with disabilities suffer enough as victims of their disease. The way society treats these people have a lasting affect and can encourage others the do the same, which leads to a cycle that harms people. This article calls to attention the harmful way society treats the disabled. I believe it is important for us to treat others with respect and even with plain equality. The civil rights act clearly refers to the disabled as people who need to be respected as well. America and other coutries around the world should adhere to this rule and protect its disabled citizens.