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The canteen, a patient-run enterprise, is a full-time, pastime for many. As a result, alcoholism becomes an additional sickness for many patients.

Carville has both a Protestant and Catholic chapel for worship. Historically, religion perpetuated all stigma associated with leprosy. Yet, today, it is within the walls of the church where most patients find their only strength.

All patients undergo an autopsy upon death. Death is a widely accepted phenomenon and some even talk of seeing each other in the cemetery. 'Here's looking down at ya!' Social and family ostracism leaves many at Carville to live out their years and…

Death is more often caused by drug-related complications than the disease itself. Here, leprosy in its rarest form brought death at age 31.

Leprosy kills nerve endings. This patient cut off the fingers of his right hand unknowingly while working in his garden in Trinidad. Arriving as a double amputee from Trinidad, he was walking nine months later.

The Mississippi River used to be the only means of access to Carville. Carville was originally a sugar cane plantation. When founded as a leprosarium in the late 1800's, local residents were told it was to become an ostrich farm. The Public Health…

Standard chemotherapy will usually render a patient non-infectious within two months. Daily treatment may be mandatory for life. Carville staff receive 'hazard pay' for their work at this government institution.

Patients come to Carville for treatment from all over the world. Once inside the U.S., they receive all treatment free for as long as necessary. Leprosy can be physically devastating or reveal no clinical signs. 'Carville is a psychological…

Leprosy the most feared, but least understood of diseases. The psychological trauma can be as damaging as the disease itself. Only one in five of the world's 15-20 million victims are receiving treatment. But, of those, the 350 patients at the…

Portrait of Bert Lance.