Nurses and Patients in Culion Hospital

Title: Nurses and Patients in Culion Hospital
Source: Dean C. Worcester, “Nurses and Patients in the Leper Colony Hospital” (1905), Dean C. Worcester Photographic Collection, Courtesy of the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropological Archaeology, UMMA 58Q070.
Description: A photograph of nurses and patients in the Culion Hospital. The patients are standing, sitting, and laying in bed. Some patients are wrapped in bandages, and some patients and nurses stare at the camera. In the beginning years of Culion's establishment, there was an insufficient amount of medical staff for the number of patients. In just five years of its establishment, the island grew to over 5,000 patients. It became known as the largest colony for leprosy patients in the world. Treatment for leprosy on the island was merely experimental because there was no known cure. Suffering from isolation and stigma, patients could only hope they would be one of the fortunate ones to heal.