One patient who had been wrenched from her parents in Abita Springs, Louisiana, when she was nine years old, sat in this spot in her wheelchair for hours everyday. She died in 1998 after living most of her 90 years here. Both of her legs were amputated from the disease.
In the 1950's, a doctor, Paul Brand, who had been at a leprosarium in the islands, came to Carville with new techniques to treat patients and fewer amputations were done. He had special techniques to treat hands that were gnarled or had fingers absorbed into the hands from the disease. He worked "miracles" at Carville with patients' extremities.