In the Middle Ages, leprosy mowed down millions. But in 1873, the Norwegian epidemiologist Gerhard Hansen identified the causative agent of leprosy - the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae, and six years later his colleague Albert Neisser managed to isolate it from the patient's body. Science prevailed over the disease. But there was one more person who, at the cost of his life, defeated leprosy in the whole state and forever inscribed his name in history. His name was Damian de Wester, and he was a simple priest.
He was born in 1840 in Brabant, Belgium, and was named Joseph de Wester at birth. The seventh child of a major grain merchant, he graduated from school in the town of Brain-le-Comte and deliberately chose the path of faith, joining the Catholic Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in the city of Leuven. Joseph adopted the name of his brother Damian.
Joseph-Damian did not graduate from seminary, did not know Latin well enough, was restless - all this greatly hindered the advancement of the career ladder. The only chance to get a parish was to go somewhere to the ends of the earth as a missionary. And when the opportunity dawned to go as a priest to Hawaii, Damian immediately seized on it. On May 21, 1864 - already in Hawaii - Damian was ordained and sent to the Northern Parish of Kohala.
LOST HAWAII
There was practically no worse breeding ground for dangerous diseases in the world than Hawaii. Every second suffered from syphilis, typhus and influenza, smallpox and cholera cut people right and left, but the main scourge was leprosy. The monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii, Kamehameha V, strove with all his might to cope with the painful condition of his people. In general, he was a rather active monarch - he introduced a new Constitution, banned the import and sale of alcoholic beverages on the territory of the islands, built a huge cathedral, organized a post office and an army.
In 1865, Kamehameha issued a decree to combat leprosy. A separate colony-leper colony Kalaupapa was created on the island of Molokai, where all the patients were driven. The colony was separated from the main population of the island by a ridge of high hills. The police forcibly took men and women suspected of having leprosy and sent them to a collection point, where a doctor would decide their fate. If a diagnosis of leprosy was made, people went to the “cemetery of the living,” and they had to prepare for their departure, as for death: make a will, take care of the children. They hid the sick, families moved to the most remote villages, hid in extinct volcanic craters, even offered armed resistance to the police.
The problem was that the patients in the colony could not feed themselves. None of the healthy ones agreed to go there and work, medical assistance was not provided to the lepers, they had no social rights, and those who fled settled back or fell under the wrathful hand of the Lynch judge. There were no cemeteries, churches, administration in the colony either. At first, the royal administration supplied the sick with food, but over time, supplies stopped. When new lepers arrived, the old residents told them the main principle on which the colony was held: "There are no laws here."
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THE LIFE OF FATHER DAMIAN
The apostolic vicar of the islands was Louis Desire Maigret, a man of stern views. He believed that the lepers were unworthy of God, but at some point he nevertheless notified the local priests about finding a volunteer to work in the leper colony. And on May 10, 1873, Damian with a prayer book and a small crucifix arrived in the village, where at that time 816 patients lived. The first weeks he lived in the open air, slept under a tree, and ate on a flat rock. And then he got down to business.
First, he organized the construction of a wooden church, then he arranged a cemetery instead of a common pit, where the dead were previously dumped. Then he founded a school, where he taught himself, and at the same time attracted the most educated patients to teaching. Then he established the work of several agricultural farms, equipped warehouses and a local store, created a number of fraternities and social organizations, as well as a hospital. He organized the supply of medicines and clothing to the village, as well as everything necessary for a civilized life. He worked as a designer, architect, excavator, bricklayer, carpenter, and any other craftsman that was needed.
At the table he ate "poi" (flour stew with meat), dipping his hand into a bowl shared with the lepers; drank from the cups they gave him; borrowed his pipe when asked; played with children, who hung on it like bunches.
Now new patients entering the colony did not end up in monstrous conditions, where they starved to death for several weeks, but in a village with a clear infrastructure, organized communications, schools, medical facilities, roads and a small port. Damian even managed to organize the construction of an aqueduct, which was never known in Hawaii.
SUDDEN GLORY
Father Damian discovered leprosy in him in December 1884 while taking a bath. He dipped his foot into too hot water and felt nothing.
By this time, the pitiful huts were replaced by sturdy wooden and stone houses, the colony lived almost richer than the rest of the country, and Father Damian was known throughout the world. In 1885, Masanao Goto, a famous Japanese doctor and specialist in infectious diseases, arrived at the colony. Goto was so impressed by the priest's dedication that he stayed on Molokai for the rest of his days. He became one of Damian's best friends and contributed immensely to the development of therapy for leprosy sufferers.
But at the same time, a huge number of people Damian could not stand. In 1881, after numerous requests, another priest was sent to help him. He, in general, was noted for writing denunciations in which he claimed that Damian was proud, considers himself almost God and is dangerous for Rome.
In the last years of his life, Father Damian was especially active. He was like an electrical outlet feeding the colony's existence. In 1886, several volunteers arrived to help the weakening Damian. Father Damian grew weaker. On March 23, 1889, he could not get out of bed and did not get up again until his death. On March 30, he officially transferred his duties to other people, on April 2, he was exiled, and on April 15, 1889, Father Damian died. He was buried under the same pandanus tree, under which, according to legend, he spent the first night after arriving in the colony.
IN MEMORY OF THE SHEPHERD
Immediately after the death of Damian de Wester, a monument was erected in Honolulu, and in 1936, at the direction of the Belgian government, his body was exhumed and transported to Leuven, the city closest to the village where Joseph de Wester was once born. True, the adventures of the remains of the priest did not end there - in 1995, fragments of his right hand were returned to Hawaii, where they were again buried in the original grave on Molokai.
On October 11, 2009, Father Damian was canonized by the Catholic Church. Saint Damian is considered the patron saint of lepers with HIV or AIDS, as well as the entire state of Hawaii.
When Hawaii, as a US state, won the right to install statues of two of the most prominent people in its history in the Capitol, the residents chose the great King Kamehameha and Father Damian de Werther. Father Damian is officially recognized as the greatest native of Belgium of all time, "bypassing" Andrei Vesalius and Peter Paul Rubens, several films have been shot about him and many books have been written.
And he just saved people.
Tim Korenko