The Angus Library at Regent’s Park College contains archives of the Baptist Missionary Society. The BMS Medical Mission was involved in leprosy work in both Africa and India, particularly in what was known as the Belgian Congo (Zaire), but also in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, in what has been successively Bengal, East Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The library holds photographs of leprosaria in India taken by Dr C C Chesterman, Medical Missionary of the Belgian Congo (1920-36). This collection includes Chandraghona, Cuttack Leper Hospital in Orissa, and Chingleput (Lady Willington’s Leper Colony) in South India. There are lantern slides of proposed plans for places in the Belgian Congo: Yalisombo, 35 black and white lantern slides of work at the Yakusu Leper Colony (taken by Austin) and a collection of photos (made by Carrington) of the Yalisombo Leper Colony, which was situated across the river from Yakusu (1950?-1960). Photographs of leprosy patients under treatment at Yalemba, Pimu, and Nlemvo (Kibentele) are also held by the library.
Medical Committee Minutes include information about proposed leprosy work in Tsingchowfu, China and its fate during the Japanese invasion of China and after the Revolution; plans for the development of Chandraghona’s leprosy colony into a centre for Leprosy Research and Treatment in East Pakistan; and discussion about the Belgian Government’s proposal to develop Yalisombo into a government subsidised Leprosy Centre Project. (Robert Cochrane’s, C C Chesterman, and Stanley Browne’s views of the proposal are alluded to). Dr G O Teichmann’s typed narrative of the origins of the leprosy colony at Chandraghona is available.
There is also correspondence between Stanley Browne and C C Chesterman concerning Browne’s plans for the leper camp at Yakusu. Published BMS medical reports (1922-80s) can be used to catalogue the establishment, development, and decline of leprosy work at the following: Chandraghona – Arthington Hospital; Udayagiri, Orissa; Kibentele – Ntondo; Yakusu – Yalisombo; Pimu – Njingo; Kimpese – Kivuvu; Tsinan (China). There is also mention of the work at Vellore and Gaya. These records also show the diversification of leprosy work from colony and hospital to mobile clinic and dispensary. The work of G O Teichmann (Chandraghona); J W Bottoms (Chandraghona); Edna Staple (Kimpese); Michael Flowers (China and India); David Stockley (Agricultural Leprosy Work); and Dr Chowdhury (Chandraghona) is referred to. In addition, there are numerous BMS pamphlets which have been designed to appeal for support for medical missionary activities.
Entry made November 2001