Leprosy and childhood

Disabilities in young people stir the emotions easily. There is an immediate response to children who cannot see or who have been crippled by accident or disease. Expressions such as “stricken,” “handicapped for life” and “unable to join in the games of other children” are a measure of the sympathy that is awakened —a feeling, however, that does not necessarily follow them as easily as they get older, when the consequences of their limitations may be greater. It is, therefore, not difficult to regard disease in children as essentially different from that in adults. Certain conditions one expects to see predominantly in children just as others appear only in the more elderly. When considering those diseases that are common to all ages we ought to be certain that our emotional regard for the child is not causing us to put into separate houses what really belong to the same room.

A CAJM article on leprosy and childhood in 1950's Africa.