CHINA (PEOPLES REPUBLIC): 1 jiao token, ND (ca. 1980s), MGM-152, Qinhu Leprosy Hospital, opaque blue plastic token, circular with a central hole, tài xiàn qín hú yi yuàn ("Qin Lake Hospital, Tai County") above, denomination yi jiao at center, and bìng yuán dài yòng quàn ("patient token") below // lower case Latin letters tqy above on reverse in a small diamond which probably stands for Taixian Qinhu Yiyuan (Qinhu Hospital of Taixian), an exceedingly rare leprosarium token, PCGS graded AU55, ex Dr. Robert A. Rosenfeld Collection. This is only the second 1 jiao of this rare five-token series from Qinhu Hospital (in todays Taizhou City, Jiangsu Province) that we have handled. This series is published in "The Numismatic Aspects of Leprosy" by Roger R. McFadden, John Grost, and Dennis F. Marr (as no. 150-154, pp. 19-20) and is among the last leprosarium tokens in the world. Qinhu Hospital was founded in the 1950s and at one point had 600 patients. Though leprosy is now curable and no longer faced the same social stigma it once carried, 45 elderly former patients still lived at the nearby "Leprosy Village" as of 2019 after having spent decades isolated from their family and society.
