Secluded Veteran Dies After Five Years of Leprosy

1910

Badger Leper Dies

Passes Away After Five Long Years of Affliction

Lived Life of Seclusion in Building Set Apart for Him at the National Soldiers' Home In Milwaukee.

Milwaukee, Wis. — Albert S. O'Gorman is dead. Milwaukee's leper, after nearly five years of retreat in a little brick house on the grounds of the Soldiers' home, is no more. Death came quietly. It was the gradual dissolution of a body wasted by disease, that could no longer find strength to meet the daily strain demanded of it.

O'Gorman was a soldier. He served many years in the regular army, seeing service throughout the east and west. He joined the ranks when the war with Spain broke out, and was one of the foremost in Cuba and the Philippines. It was while with the army in the islands that he contracted the disease which brought his death.

Upon his return from war, O'Gorman entered the regular service in various army posts. Then he was taken ill. He asked a pension, and permission to enter a soldiers' home. The request was readily granted. A monthly income of $72 was allowed him by the government. He was ordered to the Milwaukee national home.

Then, and not till then, did O'Gorman learn the true character of his malady. He was examined by staff physicians, who diagnosed his disease as leprosy. There was no help for him, they said, and preparations were made to arrange for his comfort during his lifetime.

In a corner of the grounds a small brick house, once the home of one of the officials, was set aside for him. It was a two-story structure, with three rooms — a living room, a kitchen and a bedroom. Furniture and books, utensils and regulation clothing were furnished him, and he settled down to live the life of a recluse during the remainder of his days.

That was five years ago. During the intervening time, O'Gorman lived almost happily. Two of his daily meals he prepared himself on the cook stove in his little kitchen. Each day an orderly brought his dinner to him. Tobacco was supplied in abundance. Papers and books were plentiful. He was a deeply religious character, and spent much time reading the Bible, sitting on the low steps of his dwelling, basking in the sun.

To look at the man, one would not realize that he was the victim of the most horrible of diseases. He was inclined to a pleasant personality. None of the horror or fear of the evident indications of leprosy were shown.

O'Gorman suffered especially during the winter time. Cold weather, he complained, increased the steady aches and pains to which he was subjected. During last winter, he failed slowly but steadily. Spring came, and he rallied slightly; but his system was too far gone, and the convalescence proved only temporarily.

O'Gorman was born in Ireland in 1856 It was in 1874 that he came to the United States. He settled near St. Paul, Minn., and it was from there that he was recruited into the regular army.

The case of the patient attracted much attention throughout the country. He was one of two individuals in the United States afflicted with the plague.

Several times the state department and the secretary of war considered transferring his case from Milwaukee, but there were no leper colonies where he might be sent, and it was decided finally, that he could be best cared for in the little brick building in which he made his home.

—Suburbanite Economist, Chicago, Aug. 26, 1910.

Mate Took Food Sent to Lepers, Woman Charges

Oakland, California, 1921

Charging that her husband, Arthur Meyer, head gardener at the county hospital, insisted on eating choice foods reserved for the members of the leper colony and that when she refused to give him the delicacies he cursed her and called her a "crazy fool," Mrs. Cora Myers, former matron of the county hospital leper colony, today filed suit for divorce.

She alleges that shortly after their marriage last January 11, her husband insisted on eating the food provided for the lepers. She says that when she told him he could not take the edibles from these stricken people he abused her so severely that she was taken ill. She further charges that Myers then went to the superintendent of the hospital and caused her to be discharged by stating that she was a trouble maker.

Mrs. Meyers alleges that after she had been removed to a room in San Leandro her husband came to the place and raised such a row that she was forced to leave. She asks $75 a month alimony, attorney fees and costs of action, together with a restraining order preventing Meyer from disposing of his wages. The couple separated March 26, 1921.

—Oakland Tribune, Oakland, California, May 19, 1921, page 24.

Eating Snakes to Cure Leprosy

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Has Faith In His "Cure"

Only Patient who Tried Snake Diet for Leprosy Died, but Doctor Holds to His Theory.

In practicing medicine for the benefit of the natives I worked out one theory in regard to leprosy, which is a fairly common ailment in the Archipelago. I asked myself why, since a snake sheds its skin, a man who is afflicted with disease should not be able to do the same thing.

In Singapore there was a rich Chinese leper, known as Ong Si Chew, who asked me repeatedly why I did not bring him some new remedy for his disease. Since he had a large household of servants who took care of him, and his own carriages and richshas when he traveled, he was allowed to live untroubled by the authorities; but he was very unhappy, because he had tried all the remedies of the native doctors and was steadily growing worse.

At last I told him that I had something that might help. He asked me what it was, but I would not tell him. When he insisted, I answered, "Snakes."

"Ul-la!" he exclaimed, waving his arms in the air.

Then I explained my theory. The ability of a snake to shed his skin might be transferred to a human being if he ate snakes; and if so, the person would be able to shed his leprosy. Ong Si Chew did not care for the idea at all, but I told him it was worth trying and I argued that a snake is much cleaner than an eel.

At last he consented, and I furnished him with a number of small pythons with the instructions that they were to be killed and cleaned immediately before they were eaten. He was to eat them raw with his rice.

I left Singapore soon after that, and when I returned I found that Ong Si Chew had died. People thought it was a great joke on me because my patient had not survived the treatment, but I am far from being convinced that the cure will not work – or, at least, help to throw off leprosy. Ong Si Chew was in the last stages of the disease, and his case was not a fair test. – Charles Mayer, in Asia Magazine.

--The Indiana Progress, Indiana, Pennsylvania, April 27, 1921, page 4.

Leper Won't Take Medicine

Submitted to Examination by an Expert From Copenhagen.

Washington, May 25.-John Early, the leper, now isolated on a farm outside the city, whose case has provoked widespread interest, especially in the medical world, submitted to an examination by Dr. Edward Ehlers of Copenhagen, one of the world's foremost leprosy experts brought here for the purpose by the Washington Post.

Dr. Ehlers asserted that in his opinion, there is no possible doubt that Early is afflicted with the dread Asiatic scourge.

Early has been quarantined since last August and for several months past he has refused to take medicine.

Dr. Ehlers took cultures from Early's body and will make a bacteriological test.

Early is a native of Lynn, N. C, and contracted the disease while serving as a soldier in the Philippines.

--Warren Evening Mirror, Warren, Pennsylvania, May 25, 1909, page 7.