Howard E Crouch died on 8th January 2007. He founded the Damien-Dutton Society for Leprosy Aid, Inc. in 1944, a non-profit organisation based in Bellmore, New York, dedicated to freeing the world of leprosy. He named the organisation after Father Damien, the priest, who cared for people with leprosy on the island of Molokai, Hawaii, and Joseph Dutton, who assisted him. In his book, Damien and Dutton, Two Josephs on Molokai, Howard Crouch tells the story of the friendship between these two.

He became familiar with leprosy and its accompanying stigma and social isolation when he was an Army Medic stationed in the West Indies. Howard Crouch also held administrative assignments at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center (Veterans Administration) and with the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Today the Damien Dutton Society is still raising funds for medical care, research, social and physical rehabilitation and education. Click here to find out more about its work: http://www.damien-duttonleprosysociety.org/ 

Books about people with leprosy and the lives of Father Damien and Brother Dutton by Howard Crouch:

Damien Dutton, Two Josephs on Molokai; Her Name is Grace; Brother Damien of Molokai; This One is for Gussie; Once Over and Lightly; Two Hearts, One Fire; A Glimpse Behind the Mask of Leprosy; After Damien: Dutton, Yankee Soldier at Molokai 

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