In this article, found in a 1912 newspaper, a husband is believed to have leprosy. It was a frightening discovery at that time because there was no cure. You would also be sent away to live on a leper colony, without any friends or family, until your death. In this report, the wife was willing to go with her husband if he was indeed leprous.
One of the Less Heard of Cases of Heroism
Centerville, Ia., April 23 — Much has been said in the last few days of the heroism of the women of the Titanic who refused to leave their husbands.
God forbid that any should detract from the nobility of spirit of those women who loved unto death and beyond death, and who preferred and chose the bitterness of the icy water to life without love.
But it is well to remember the other; the less spectacular heroisms of our women, some of which never are read of under great black newspaper headlines.
Yesterday, Herman Hirschfield, of Bay City, Mich., was ordered under detention here by the health authorities.
The city physicians say that Hirschfield is suffering from that most dread disease — the fear and horror of the ages — leprosy.
Hirschfield broke down when he was told that. He wept. He begged to be allowed to pay one last visit to his wife, waiting for him in their home at Bay City.
The authorities refused to let him go even for five minutes. They told him that he would be held here until a final diagnosis of his disease had been made. And they themselves sent word to his wife.
Hirschfield knows of the horrors of the leper colonies, where he must go if the city physicians are confirmed in their diagnosis. And his wife knows, too.
They have read of those colonies, those islands of death in life, where men live only that they may die away from their fellows, where friends may not visit, where the whole never come. Where, year by year, slowly and with infinite pain and mental suffering, the lives of men and the bodies of men rot away.
When Hirschfield realized what had come to him, he retired to his cell, separated from all other human beings, and wept bitterly that God should have chosen him for such a fate.
And then they brought him a telegram from his wife. It read:
“Do not permit them to send you away until you have been examined by best physicians in country.
“But, if then you must go to a leper colony, I shall go with you.”
Surely in the books of God, the name of Mrs. Hirschfield must be enrolled with those of Mrs. Isidor Straus and Mrs. Bessie Allison.
Source: (1912, April 23). One of the Less Heard of Cases of Heroism. The Day Book.
