Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a long-term infection by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae or Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Infection can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This nerve damage may result in a lack of ability to feel pain, which can lead to the loss of parts of a person's extremities from repeated injuries or infection through unnoticed wounds. An infected person may also experience muscle weakness and poor eyesight. Leprosy symptoms may begin within one year, but, for some people, symptoms may take 20 years or more to occur.
Father Damien or Saint Damien of Molokai or Saint Damien De Veuster, born Jozef De Veuster, was a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium and member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a missionary religious institute. He was recognized for his ministry, which he led from 1873 until his death in 1889, in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi to people with leprosy, who lived in government-mandated medical quarantine in a settlement on the Kalaupapa Peninsula of Molokaʻi.
A leper colony, also known by many other names, is an isolated community for the quarantining and treatment of lepers, people suffering from leprosy.
M. leprae, the bacterium responsible for leprosy, is believed to have spread from East Africa through the Middle East, Europe, and Asia by the 5th century before reaching the rest of the world more recently. Historically, leprosy was believed to be extremely contagious and divinely ordained, leading to enormous stigma against its sufferers. 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. Following G.A. 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. Although Western countries now generally treat cases of leprosy individually on an outpatient basis, traditional isolated colonies continue to exist in India, China, and some other countries.
Penikese Island is a 75-acre (0.117 sq mi) island off the coast of Massachusetts, United States, in Buzzards Bay. It is one of the Elizabeth Islands, which make up the town of Gosnold, Massachusetts. Penikese is located near the west end of the Elizabeth island chain.
The Elizabeth Islands are a chain of over 20 small islands extending southwest from the southern coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts in the United States.They are located at the outer edge of Buzzards Bay, north of Martha's Vineyard, from which they are separated by Vineyard Sound, and constitute the town of Gosnold in Dukes County, Massachusetts.
Culion, officially the Municipality of Culion, is a 3rd class municipality in the province of Palawan, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 23,213 people.
Kalaupapa National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park located in Kalaupapa, Hawaiʻi, on the island of Molokaʻi. Coterminous with the boundaries of Kalawao County and primarily on Kalaupapa peninsula, it was established by Congress in 1980 to expand upon the earlier National Historic Landmark site of the Kalaupapa Leper Settlement. It is administered by the National Park Service. Its goal is to preserve the cultural and physical settings of the two leper colonies on the island of Molokaʻi, which operated from 1866 to 1969 and had a total of 8500 residents over the decades.
Peel Island is a small heritage-listed island located in Moreton Bay, east of Brisbane, in South East Queensland, Australia. The island is a locality within the local government area of Redland City and a national park named Teerk Roo Ra National Park and Conservation Park.
Kalawao is a location on the eastern side of the Kalaupapa Peninsula of the island of Molokai, in Hawaii, which was the site of Hawaii's leper colony between 1866 and the early 20th century. Thousands of people in total came to the island to live in quarantine. It was one of two such settlements on Molokai, the other being Kalaupapa. Administratively Kalawao is part of Kalawao County. The placename means "mountain-side wild woods" in Hawaiian.
Leprosy stigma is a type of social stigma, a strong negative feeling towards a person with leprosy relating to their moral status in society. It is also referred to as leprosy-related stigma, leprostigma, and stigma of leprosy. Since ancient times, leprosy instilled the practice of fear and avoidance in many societies because of the associated physical disfigurement and lack of understanding behind its cause. Because of the historical trauma the word "leprosy" invokes, the disease is now referred to as Hansen's disease, named after Gerhard Armauer Hansen who discovered Mycobacterium leprae, the bacterial agent that causes Hansen's disease. Those who have suffered from Hansen's disease describe the impact of social stigma as far worse than the physical manifestations despite it being only mildly contagious and pharmacologically curable. This sentiment is echoed by Weis and Ramakrishna, who noted that "the impact of the meaning of the disease may be a greater source of suffering than symptoms of the disease".
Leper colony money was special money which circulated only in leper colonies due to the fear that money could carry leprosy and infect other people. However, leprosy is not easily transmitted by casual contact or objects; actual transmission only happens through long-term, constant, intimate contact with leprosy sufferers and not through contact with everyday objects used by sufferers.
Pangkor Laut Island is a small island southwest of Pangkor Island, Perak, Malaysia.
Sorokdo is an island in Goheung County, South Jeolla in South Korea. The word sorok means "small deer", which the island's coastline, viewed from above, is supposed to resemble. The island is approximately one kilometer away from the larger Nokdong Port.
Although leprosy, or Hansen's Disease, was never an epidemic in The United States, cases of leprosy have been reported in Louisiana as early as the 18th century. The first leprosarium in the continental United States existed in Carville, Louisiana from 1894-1999 and Baton Rouge, Louisiana is the home of the only institution in the United States that is exclusively devoted to leprosy consulting, research, and training.
William Carleton Irvine was a missionary, writer and the founding editor of the Indian Christian magazine.
The Culion leper colony is a former leprosarium located on Culion, an island in the Palawan province of the Philippines. It was established by the U.S. government in order to rid leprosy from the Philippine Islands through the only method known at the time: isolating all existing cases and gradually phasing out the disease from the population. In addition to segregating the disease from the rest of the population, the island was later established in order to offer a better opportunity for people afflicted with leprosy to receive adequate care and modern treatments.
The history of leprosy was traced to its origins by an international team of 22 geneticists using comparative genomics of the worldwide distribution of Mycobacterium leprae. Monot et al. (2005) determined that leprosy originated in East Africa or the Near East and traveled with humans along their migration routes, including those of trade in goods and slaves. The four strains of M. leprae are based in specific geographic regions where each predominantly occurs:
Kate Marsden was a British missionary, explorer, writer and nurse. Supported by Queen Victoria and Empress Maria Feodorovna she investigated a cure for leprosy. She set out on a round trip from Moscow to Siberia to find a cure, creating a leper treatment centre in Siberia.
Leonard E. S. Sharp was an English doctor and surgeon who served as a medical missionary in East Africa from 1914 to 1955. He worked in various regions across Uganda and modern-day Rwanda alongside his longtime professional partner and friend Algernon Stanley Smith. Together, the pair founded the Rwandan Mission and Sharp went on to establish a leper colony on Lake Bunyonyi. He received awards from the british queen Elizabeth II and the Royal African Society for his work.
Edward George Horder was an English medical missionary to China notable for his work with leprosy patients. As a member of the Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.), Horder spent 25 years in the city of Pakhoi–now Beihai–building and operating the first mission hospital in the Guangdong province. In addition to becoming the second-largest C.M.S. mission hospital in China, Horder's Pakhoi mission station was the first institution in the region to treat leprosy patients. Even after Horder's departure, the hospital remained a health center in Beihai and was the site of service for a generation of new missionaries. Although the leper wing closed in 1936, the hospital itself still survives as the Beihai People Hospital.
