| Category | Leprosarium |
|---|---|
| Country | China |
| Address | Tai-Kam Island, Kwantung |
| Current Address | Guandong, China |
"Tai-Kam Island is about forty miles from Macao, two or three miles from the shore of Chek-kai County and City, and a hundred miles (as the crow flies) from Canton. It is a beautiful island, containing perhaps ten square miles of wooded peaks and coves, with streams of fresh water leaping down through the rocks from near the summit of the highest point eleven hundred feet above the sea. The whole island belongs to the Colony, purchased by Dr Wu [Ting-fang] at a cost of $5,000.00. However, the residents of South Bay still keep their humble homes in the village there, pasturing their cattle and planting the fields thereabout, and maintain friendly relations with their neighbours at North Bay, though not a few of them were formerly pirates. Indeed many of them have become Christians as a result of contacts with those whose mission among them, they have long since found, is one of mercy and not mercenary.Source: Rev A R Gallimore, "Tia-Kam Leper Colony" in James L Maxwell, "Ridding China of Leprosy" The China Medical Journal 44 (1930): 769-71.There now stand in the cove of the mountain island facing North Bay fifteen substantial buildings of brick and stone with reinforced concrete roofs, making an attractive village in white to ships passing through the inner waters sailing south. In this model village it is quite fitting that the House of God should rise above the rest in the center. Hard by on the right is the Hospital and on the left the general utilities building. North and south of these, in regular order are the twelve dormitories for lepers [sic], all within a square 300 ft by 300.
Already work has begun on the second unit of fifteen buildings, similar to the first, which will later be used for the women residents of the Colony.
The more than one hundred lepers now living on Tai-Kam Island are ministered to by a corps of nurses and attendants and a doctor and preacher who serve them in healing their bodies and bringing the message of salvation to their souls. While it has been difficult to keep a resident physician there, a faithful nurse, himself a leper once, has been most diligent in giving injections and otherwise doing faithful service.
It is interesting to note that a post office has also been established on the island for the convenience of the Colony. A pier has been constructed for the safety of small boats which enter the little harbour. The White Sails, as it is known by the Islanders round about, plies back and forth between Tai-Kam and Macao, also Tau-shan, furnishing supplies. This well constructed motor-sail boat is quite seaworthy and is the property of the Colony, being built especially for the purpose.
The physical equipment of Tai-kam has been provided largely by contributions from America, though gifts have been received from other sources in different parts of the world. At present, however, though they have furnished some assistance in the past, no aid is being received from the American and British organizations …
Looking to the future it is the plan to continue adding unit after unit of fifteen buildings each, containing house of worship, hospital, utilities building and cottages, thus carrying out the Chinese idea of village life and government, and looking carefully tot eh physical and spiritual life of those who are maimed and withered and blind as a result of their loathsome disease"