lazaret. In 1937, after the disease had slowly attacked his limbs and optic nerves, Noel Laddie Agnew died on Peel Island at the age of 41. June Berthelsen was another patient on the island, having been diagnosed with Hansen's disease in 1956. Her memoir, The Lost Years: A Story of Leprosy, documents her experiences as a sufferer of Hansen's disease, and details her period on the island between 1956 and mid-1958. She was the only patient to have written a personal account about her experiences, which includes descriptions of her time on the island and the difficult daily living conditions there, as well as her experiences from her personal life and encounters off of the island. Her account describes her relationship with the nursing and medical staff on the island. The memoir mentions the Queensland government's non-payment of a pension to women sufferers of Hansen's, while male patients did receive it. Medical treatments and cures One of the first experimental treatments for Hansen's disease was the short-lived drug nastin, which involved the injection of the culture of the Bacillus of leprosy. This was followed by the common treatment of injecting patients with oil from the Chaulmoogra nut. Although this treatment was often painful, and there was doubt as to whether it had long-term benefits, it remained a main treatment on Peel Island and around the world for more than 30 years. During this time, many medical professionals believed that a good diet and a stress-free lifestyle was more likely to send the disease into remission. In January 1947, Peel Island patients were treated with the first of several sulfone derivative drugs, which were developed in the United States. These drugs proved the most successful in the long line of treatments for Hansen's disease sufferers, and from then on, the disease became easy to treat. Social consequences Hansen's disease was believed to be highly contagious, with mortality unavoidable. Despite an increase in public understanding of this inaccuracy, this stigma had an incredibly long-lasting impact on the perception of patients on Peel Island. The Queensland Health Department’s decision to allay public fears about the disease by isolating patients backfired, leading the public to believe the disease was worse than it actually was. Rosemary Opala described the island as "folklore" where "the mystery, however, gothic fiction|gothic, is so much more romantic and aesthetically satisfying." From the relocation of patients in 1959 to the