The Penikese Hospital: a Massachusetts hospital for the treatment of Hansen's disease.

Abstract

The first official record of Hansen's disease (HD)* in Massachusetts appeared in 1882. A man in Salem was said to have the tubercular form of the disease.1 He was isolated at the Salem almshouse, and he died there in March 1883. The disease was also occasionally diagnosed among seamen in the thriving port of Boston during that era. These patients could be held in the quarantine hospital on Gallup's Island in Boston Harbor and were often deported.However, in 1904 the Massachusetts Board of Charity received word that a resident of Harwich on Cape Cod had been diagnosed as having . . .