FROM THE ARCHIVES


SISTER ALICE AND CHILD AT THE CHESHIRE HOSPITAL IN DHANBAD INDIA; FATHER CARL DINCHER, SJ IN THE FORGROUND

This photo is a kind of cheerful Pieta, an Indian sister caring for a child too deformed from birth to sit up.

The picture reminded me of the much starker image taken in the early seventies by famous photographer William Eugene Smith in Minamata, Japan; that photo of a mother bathing a child deformed from birth by industrial mercury poisoning. With his photos Smith drew the attention of the world to the dangers of mercury poisoning.

NOVEMBER 2003