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Triumph at Carville: A Tale of Leprosy in America. 2005. By John Wilhelm and Sally Squires. 56 min. DVD format, color and black and white. (The Wilhelm Group, Inc. Washington, DC.)
For slightly more than one hundred years, Carville, Louisiana, was the site of the hospital for the treatment of leprosy, a mildly contagious condition that strikes fear in the hearts of those ignorant of the disease and creates pain and stigma for its sufferers. One would think that such a location would be a bleak and dismal place. However, as John Wilhelm and Sally Squires attest in their production, Triumph at Carville, such is not the case. The town and the hospital became the home for an internationally recognized facility for the management of Hansen's disease, the preferred term for leprosy. The hospital itself, the United States Public Health Services Hospital #66, later called the Gillis W. Long Hansen's Disease Center, became the home and community for both those diagnosed with the condition and for the dedicated personnel who served there.
The fifty-six minute documentary chronicles the one hundred years of history that built the hospital and created the Carville community. The program traces the saga of the hospital from the arrival of seven patients, five men and two women, in 1894 through the hospital's closure in 1999, when the facility was transferred to the state of Louisiana for use as a youth challenge program. As the title suggests, the film is hardly an overly sentimental treatment of a misunderstood disease and its victims. Rather, it is a testimony to the spirit and resiliency of the patients, some who were involuntarily incarcerated in the hospital or abandoned there by family. Sharing in their triumph and in the Carville story were the dedicated personnel intent on finding a cure for leprosy. Patients and staff alike share in the triumphant story that is Carville and the video that chronicles their ultimate success.
Using a montage of pictures, artwork, video interviews, news clips, and news reels, the producers weave a tapestry valorizing the...