Thought for the Day, Wednesday 12th February

Good morning.

In these thoughts, I have been pondering about Hansen’s disease, or leprosy.

But who was Hansen?

Gerhard Hansen was a Norwegian physician. In 1873 he found the organism Mycobacterium Leprae, the cause of leprosy, a bacterium of the same family as the one that causes TB. There was still no cure, but the diagnosis was more reliable. 

Around the same time another man, Wellesley Bailey, went to India intending to work as a policeman. He was shocked and horrified by what he saw of people with leprosy being forced to live as hopeless outcasts at the edges of the towns. When he returned home to Ireland, he began to educate his countrymen about leprosy, an enterprise which would grow to be well known as the Leprosy Mission.  

Bailey’s diligence gradually stimulated interest in leprosy and, after a few years, international support. Physicians began to research the illness – perhaps surprisingly, they found that leprosy wasn’t particularly infectious and that more than 90% of people had natural immunity to it.

Before he went to India, Bailey had been in Australia seeking his fortune in gold. He didn’t succeed. His encounter with sufferers from leprosy in India turned his life around. After his death, his granddaughter said of him that although he had not been a saintly man, she had never heard him utter an unkind word about anyone.

He was kind.

I read recently that there are three important things in the way we behave towards one another:

the first important thing is kindness; the second is kindness; and the third is kindness.

Have a good day.

I am greatly indebted to Mairead McIver for her advice.

In memory of Donald John MacLeod. A faithful friend.