However, those afflicted with the more severe lepromatous strain do not always respond to dapsone. Since they may suffer loss of sensitivity and ulcerations of the skin which require surgical attention, many of these patients need to stay at Carville for longer periods of observation and care. Some never leave.

Li's strain straddles the borderline area between the two, sometimes displaying characteristics of the tuberculoid, sometimes resembling the lepromatous. Because of the negative reaction she has to sulphone-based drugs, Li needs close supervision at the moment. Thus she lives in the modern infirmary rather than the somewhat dilapidated dormitories provided for more permanent residents.

And her doctors doubt she will become one. Li has begun to respond to experimental chemo therapy, and her face is clearing up. While she may have to return periodically for treatment, Li will eventually leave Carville to live with her family in Texas again.

She looks forward to that day.

"Yes, I was afraid when I found out I had Hansen's. Afraid because I knew so little about the disease. If all you know is what you've read in the Bible, you're bound to be frightened. And that's all most people know. Hansen's Disease is nowhere near as contagious and communicable as most people think, but physical deformities arouse fear.

"Someone with this disease, even if it's totally inactivated, cannot go out and look for a job. Not if he admits to having Hansen's Disease anyway. Employers are afraid to hire you because of the reaction of other employees.

"If we could only eradicate the stigma, the fear, the misconceptions. The social stigma, the ostracism, causes more problems than the disease itself..."

To eradicate that stigma, Louis Boudreaux has worked as a journalist for 22 years. However, he has never had to worry about job discrimination, because he found fruitful employment within the confines of Carville.

As editor-in-chief of Star, a bi-monthly tabloid which reports world-wide developments in the battle against HD, Boudreaux oversees one of the most unusual operations in the publishing business. Every one of his 22 staff writers and production personnel suffers from some form of HD. Those who have not lost feeling in their hands do the typing and press work, while others write articles and perform whatever tasks their handicaps will allow.

With a circulation of 70,000, Star (not to be confused with the similarly named gossip magazine distributed in supermarkets throughout America) can hardly claim to mold public opinion. Boudreaux readily admits that the magazine merely reflects the enthusiastic efforts of amateurs to educate a woefully ignorant public as best it can.

But such ignorance, however detrimental to those with HD, is somewhat understandable, considering the rare occurrence of leprosy in this country. Although HD has existed at endemic levels for some time in other parts of the world, such as India or Central Africa, only some 3000 patients presently receive treatment for the condition in this country. Because the disease is impossible to detect in its incubation stage, health experts will double or even triple that figure when estimating the actual population of HD sufferers here. Even so, the number remains minute.

But Boudreaux and his staff plug ahead, hoping to reach whomever they can.

In his checkered sportscoat and thin tie, Boudreaux resembles any other well-healed businessman with an office on Main St. USA. He even belongs to Carville's own Lion's Club chapter, and he has the organization's insignia emblazoned on his desk neameplate to prove it.

While Boudreaux may not have had to scrape and claw in the marketplace to build his magazine, which is subsidized by a veteran's organization and operates without, overhead costs in a government building, he had other obstacles to overcome. And they become readily apparent upon closer observation of the executive seated calmly behind his desk.

Boudreaux is blind; his hands are gnarled and almost dysfunctional; his face is slightly disfigured. He learned he had HD when he was 19 years old. Since that day in 1934, he has lived and worked at Carville.