National Hansen's Disease Museum

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National Hansen's Disease Museum
Established	1996
Location	5445 Point Clair Rd Carville, Louisiana 70721
Curator	Elizabeth Schexnyder
Website	http://www.hrsa.gov/hansens/museum

Coordinates: 30°11′44″N 91°07′33″W / 30.195654, -91.125682

The National Hansen's Disease Museum is a historical museum in Carville, Louisiana.^[1]

[edit] History

Located among the oaks on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans in Carville, Louisiana is the only national leprosy hospital throughout the entire United States. An abandoned sugar plantation, once named Indian Camp, a reference to its earlier use as a Houma Indian hunting and fishing ground, becomes the Louisiana Leper Home. In 1894 patients, doctors and nurses lived, worked and made medical history as they promoted understanding, identification, and treatment of Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease. Many patients entered the gates they would never pass through again only to leave over one hundred years of artifacts and memories of their lives there.

What began with five men and two women with the disease being brought to the Louisiana Leper Home in the 1890s would grow into hundreds of employees and patients, including married couples and children. Louisiana Leper Home, was known as "a place of refuge, not reproach; a place of treatment and research, not detention." It offered hope to the patients, as well as a comfortable refuge from society.

Through the years, the name would change; in 1921 the U.S. Public Health Service took control and the "Home" became U.S. Marine Hospital Number 66 the National Leprosarium of the United States. So much history was made here. The Star, a world renowned, international publication was started by patient Stanley Stein, known as "Carville's Crusader" as a two page newsletter; patients wrote books, many famous doctors and nurses would make medical history and the hospital grew with over two miles of covered walkways.

In 1986, the facility became known as the Gillis W. Long Hansen’s Disease (Leprosy) Center, named after the distinguished United States Congressman. He was a good friend and associate of people living and working with Hansen's disease. Most PHS hospitals were closed during the 1980s. Gillis Long was successful in lobbying Congress to keep "Carville" opened for the patients who wanted to remain on site, even though mandetory quarantine ceased to be law in Louisiana in the late 1950s. The name change of the site was directly linked to Congressman Long's influence in keeping the hospital opened and dedicated to the care, treatment and rehabilitation of leprosy patients.

In 1992 the Carville Historic District was established and in 1996 the National Hansen’s Disease (Leprosy) Museum was founded. The U.S. Congress passed a bill to relocate the Gillis W. Long Hansen’s Disease (Leprosy) Center to Baton Rouge, Louisiana and as of 1999 the National Hansen's Disease Programs continues its clinical care and research for Hansen's disease in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.