Leprosy Mailing List – February 9, 2015
Ref.: (LML) Burial customs of leprosy patients in past and present
From: Jingquan Wang, Wukang,Deqing Zhejiang, China
Dear Pieter,
I would like to add more information for the tip of "burial customs of leprosy patients."
I have been engaged in leprosy control work for 25 years and have travelled many places in China.
There was a special burial custom in Haining City in Zhejiang, China, popular in the early 1920s. The alive leprosy patients were put into a big jar, only the head could raise from the jar head. In several years the patients slowly starved to death due to the poor provision of foods and bad living circumstances. Then the nearby people would dig more earth covering the jar to form a tomb.
In some places of the North China, people would use lime to cover the corpse of leprosy patients. They believed that the leprosy bacteria will be killed by the boiling lime.
I came to a southern province of China for supervising the leprosy control work in 2007 or so. Local residents told me that there was a leprosy patient living in a hut in the nearby mountain, who was burned to death in a dark night. It was suspected that someone intentionally lighted the hut to kill him. This miserable thing happened 20 years ago. I am sure it is very rare at present around China.
I have worked as a leprosy control worker in a eastern province of China from 1989-2002. During that period, I diagnosed a leprosy patient and gave her MDT. Unfortunately, the patient developed DDS syndrome. I treated her with dexamethasone 50 mg in her home. Her children were so scared for her leprosy that, eventually, she starved to death in bed as no one cared for her.
Off course, these are only extreme examples of leprosy patients in the past
I wish these will be helpful to her research.
Best regards,
Jingquan Wang,Bachelor of Medicine
Chief Physician and Deputy Director
Inpatient Department
Institute of Dermatology of Zhejiang Province,
China,313200
No. 61,Wuyuan Street,Wukang,Deqing,313200，Zhejiang,China.
Academic Secretary of China Leprosy Association since 2010
Science Communication Expert of Leprology of China Association for Science and Technology since 2013
Phone:86-572-8296002
Fax:86-572-8078115
E-mail:Jingquanwang.cn@hotmail.com, wjingquan@126.com
LML - S Deepak, B Naafs, S Noto and P Schreuder
LML blog link: http://leprosymailinglist.blogspot.it/
Contact: Dr Pieter Schreuder << editorlml@gmail.com
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