Picture: An undated photograph of the Albert Memorial Hospital, where fear was raised in 1879 after a Chinese man was admitted, rumoured to be suffering from leprosy. Credit: From the collections of the Wollongong City Library and the Illawarra Historical Society.
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Until the 1880s, reports of leprosy in Australia were infrequent, and largely confined to the Chinese in the Victorian goldfields.
The shipping trade brought the contagious disease to local shores in greater numbers and colonial doctors became faced with a problem for which they had little experience.
In January 1878, the Mercury published details of a Chinese leper in Queensland who was suffering the first stage of the disease, with his face, arms and back covered in dark red blotches. Second-stage symptoms had also set in, in his left hand and wrist.
"The circulation seems to be stagnant, the feeling has departed and the hand is seamed with characteristic white lines," the Mercury said.
The sufferer had been temporarily housed in a hut at the centre of a jail paddock, which was surrounded by a fence.
"His keeper occupies a tent a little distance off. At night, the door of his domicile is secured by an iron rod. The keeper never touches the door with his hands. The leper's food and water are brought to the fence and left there and the leper comes forward and takes what he wants."
Moves were being made to either ship the leper to Hong Kong, or keep him isolated "on one of the coast islands, which would be set apart by proclamation for such a purpose".
Just two weeks later, an alarming report emerged that a leprosy patient was being treated in Wollongong's Albert Memorial Hospital. However, it was dismissed as "pure fabrication" by the Government Medical Officer, Dr Lyons.
Dr Lyons confirmed that a Chinese man was a patient in the hospital, but he was suffering from ulcers caused by accidental injury.
The problem of where to house patients suffering infectious diseases in NSW was solved in 1881 when 500 acres of Crown land at Little Bay was set aside for the Coast Hospital (later Prince Henry Hospital). Two years later, the facility was expanded to include a leper - or lazar - facility, the isolated rooms having five Chinese patients by October 1883.
"Very little is known by medical men as to the nature of leprosy, and no death having occurred at the Leper Hospital, there has been no opportunity for a post-mortem examination by the local medical authorities," the Herald said.
By 1889, the number of patients had expanded to 11 Chinese lepers and "one white native-born Australian".
A report in October 1892 said the Board of Health believed the method of treating the patients involved no danger to the staff or the public.
The rooms suspected cases were kept in were disinfected after every case of disease, as were the ambulances.
Genealogy tip
For a history of the Prince Henry Hospital, together with a timeline of events from the time it was first opened as the Coast Hospital, go here.
