Leper colony

Other severe skin diseases were frequently conflated with leprosy and all such sufferers were kept away from the general public, although some religious orders provided medical care and treatment.

Recent research has shown M. leprae has maintained a similarly virulent genome over at least the last thousand years, leaving it unclear which precise factors led to leprosy's near elimination in Europe by 1700.

A growing number of cases following the first wave of European colonization, however, led to increased attention towards leprosy during the New Imperialism of the late 19th century.

Hansen's discovery of the role of M. leprae in the disease, the First International Leprosy Conference held in Berlin in 1897 renewed interest and investment in the isolation of lepers throughout the European colonial empires.

The development of modern treatments eliminated the need to isolate lepers as early as the 1940s; scientific arguments against the practice were made in the 1980s.

In legend, even kings were removed from power and left to wander in the forests while suffering from leprosy, although their position could be restored in the event of their recovery, whether through divine intervention or Ayurvedic herbal remedies such as chaulmoogra oil.

[14] Similarly, the ancient Persians[15] and Hebrews considered certain skin diseases to render people unclean and unfit for society, without organizing any special locations for their care; it seems likely, however, that the references to "leprosy" in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible are the result of a misunderstanding produced by the Septuagint's Greek translation and subsequent Latin translations like the Vulgate and originally referred to a variety of conditions such as psoriasis before becoming associated with leprosy centuries later.

[15] Leprosy seems to have reached the rest of Europe during late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, with the imperial Church reducing formal restrictions on lepers while setting aside funds for leprosaria where clerics would treat the afflicted.

Spinalonga on Crete , Greece, one of the last leprosy colonies in Europe, closed in 1957
Culion leper colony in Culion old town in Palawan , Philippines used to shelter one of the largest population of lepers in Asia , numbering between 3,500-4,000. [ 12 ] [ 13 ]
Taddiport in North Devon , England, formerly a medieval leper colony
Abandoned nun's quarters at the leper colony on Chacachacare Island in Trinidad and Tobago
Laoe Si Momo (Spring Water) leper colony was founded on August 25, 1906, in the Batak region of Sumatra , 10 kilometers from Kaban Jahe. Within five months it was home to 72 people affected with leprosy and by April 1921 the colony included 280. The patients lived in small houses.