While researching a blog post about the Sungai Buloh Leprosy Settlement, the banknote pictured below, housed at the Numismatic Museum popped-up.
Dated 1936, around the time the Leprosy Settlement was completed, the banknote was for use exclusively within the settlement.
This currency was presumably introduced due to concerns from the general public about catching leprosy from banknotes previously handled by lepers.
The same applied in the mid-1980s in the northern Yemeni city of Taiz. A short distance outside Taiz was a “leper colony” known as the City of Light. It was run by nuns from the Missionaries of Charity, an organisation founded by Mother Teresa.
The settlement was fairly basic but clean and well looked after. A nice looking Indian nun who worked at the settlement said her assignment in Yemen was to be for 10 years without leave, following which she would be entitled to a holiday back in India.
Was she not scared of contracting the disease? She said leprosy was caused by bacteria and spread like the common cold but it was much less infectious and one would need to live in an infected area for years to run the risk of catching it.
Yes, she would be living among them for 10 years but God would protect her, she believed.
A few weeks later she came to the bank with a colleague and one her patients, a leper, who wanted to open a bank account. This man took a grimy bundle of banknotes from his pocket and deposited them on the counter.
The chief cashier at the bank eyed them suspiciously as if expecting to find some body parts stuck to them. He was most reluctant to count the money but eventually agreed when the nun explained that there was no risk of catching leprosy from them.
The nun also was carrying a letter from Mother Teresa, who had been informed of the visit from the bank. The letter requested (actually, more like instructed) the bank to make a donation towards the running costs of the City of Light.
Mother Teresa was known for her no-nonsense approach to fund raising, a skill which enabled her to help many more unfortunate souls than would otherwise have been possible.
Faced with this direct approach from a world-respected celebrity saint-to-be, the manager caved in and agreed to make a reasonable, if not over-generous, donation from bank coffers.
According to reports, Mother Teresa, who passed away in 1997, achieved beatification in 2003 and needed evidence of having performed a miracle before she could proceed to canonisation (sainthood).
Perhaps getting a donation from the bank could be considered a miracle?
P.S. According to a somewhat bizarre news report, scientists have established that leprosy has been spread in the southern United States by people eating undercooked meat from the nine-banded armadillo. Serves them right for eating such a cute creature!
This article first appeared on thriftytraveller.wordpress.com