This is to let you know
that a few weeks before the outbreak of war in the Pacific, I
received letters from Happy Mount Leprosy Colony, with the news
that they were carrying on in as normal a manner as possible.
The present director,
Dr. Liu, tells of four new patients being admitted, two of them
from Tamsui, of whom one was in former years a middle school
student graduate. Two other patients were ready to be discharged
as arrested cases. They would go to their homes and once more
take up their place in society. In Formosa there does not seem
to be any degree of ostracism against these discharged arrested
patients. The public look upon them as having been rid of their
disease, which is a fortunate attitude in so far as the patients
are concerned. They have now 54 patients in the colony.
Dr. Liu tells of a
celebration on June 25th which in Formosa is what is
called Anti-Leprosy Day. It is also the birthday of Her
Majesty the Empress Dowager of Japan. It happens also to be the
anniversary of the day on which the work of building the colony
started in 1931. Out there they make a lot of anniversaries, and
we had so looked forward to this tenth birthday of our colony,
but what a sad one it is for those most concerned.
The letter was
accompanied by six photographs of the church building with the
Cross still rising from its roof, also some of the other
buildings and scenes inside the colony. They were visible
evidence that the place was standing and the people were
carrying on. Will you not all remember in your prayers those
leper men and women both in our colony and the seven hundred in
the Government Hospital, among whom some one hundred and fifty
are Christians.
At tat meeting above
referred to there were distributed something over one hundred
garments, to remind the that in their distress they were not
forgotten and that joy will again come and peace be in their
midst
Note:
戴仁壽醫生報導:他在太平洋戰事勃發前幾週收到劉青風院長之函,得悉樂山園的運營照常在進行,現有患者54名。詳見上文。