Leprosy as a symbol of suffering for sins. How has it evolved over the centuries? [WE EXPLAIN]

Proven content

Leprosy is a disease that has accompanied mankind for centuries. Manners of dealing with lepers are described in Leviticus of the Old Testament. It was the priest who decided whether a person contracted leprosy, and the disease itself was to be a punishment for sins.

1. The World Health Organization is committed to a leprosy-free world. Although the disease can be treated effectively, new cases of infection continue to emerge. In recent years, there are about 200 of them. annually
2. The history of leprosy has been associated with man for thousands of years. In India, a 4000-year-old skeleton was found with the bones characteristic of leprosy
3. Poles also had merits in the history of leprosy treatment. Wanda Błeńska, a doctor from Poznań, was called “the Mother of Lepers”
4. More current information can be found on the Onet homepage

Leprosy today

Leprosy is a bacterial contagious disease that takes a long time to develop. Symptoms may appear up to 20 years after infection. The pathogens causing leprosy were first discovered in 1873 by the Norwegian physician Gerhard Henrik Hansen, hence the other name for leprosy, namely «Hansen’s disease«. Disease has accompanied man for centuries. Even in the 80s, 10-12 million people suffered from leprosy annually, but thanks to the efforts of the World Health Organization (WHO) to eliminate leprosy as a social disease, the number of sufferers has been systematically decreasing.

WHO reports that in 2019 and worldwide was recorded 202 cases of the disease. The most infected were in India, Brazil and Indonesia – almost 80 percent. all diagnoses.

Leprosy is completely treatable with proper treatment. Basic antibiotics for the treatment of leprosy are provided free of charge by the World Health Organization. Currently, a combination therapy with the use of dapsone, rifampicin and clofazimine is used. Depending on the amount of live mycobacteria in the body, treatment for leprosy takes 6 to 24 months (or until the live mycobacteria are completely cleared from the body). However, this was not always the case. How was the fight against leprosy a few hundred years ago? Why is leprosy associated with the punishment for sins? The history of leprosy also has Polish threads.

See also: Everything you need to know about leprosy

“If leprosy appears on someone, they will bring him to a priest”

Lev 13: 9-11, Regulations concerning leprosy

If leprosy appears on someone, they will bring him to a priest. When the priest examines him and finds that his skin has a white swelling covered with white hair, and live flesh on this swelling, it means that his skin is old with leprosy. The priest will declare him unclean. They will not isolate him, because he is unclean.

The passage from Leviticus accurately describes what to do when a person is suspected of having leprosy. After visiting the priest, the sick were put in seven-day quarantine. If the symptoms disappeared, the patient returned to the bosom of society. If not, he was considered unclean: A leper suffering from this disease will have his clothes torn, his hair in disarray, his chin covered, and he will cry out: “Unclean, unclean!”

You should know that leprosy is older than Leviticus. The disease is mentioned in Indian and Egyptian writings dating back to the middle of the second millennium BC. For a long time, researchers were unsure whether the descriptions actually referred to leprosy or some other skin disease. In 2009, a 4000-year-old skeleton was discovered in western India that showed signs of deformities caused by leprosy.

Dead while living in leprosy

The strong conviction that leprosy appeared as a punishment for sins caused lepers to become “dead in life” for the community. It was for them that the leprosy in which they waited for death were created. There was no question of any treatment. The sick person could not leave the “hospital”, and if it occurred to him to leave, the gallows erected at the entrance gate to the leprosarium effectively discouraged him from doing so. The sick had to wear a bell, knocker or other object that made a sound to warn of the leper approaching their necks at all times.

The very transition to the leprosarium was like a funeral for the sick person when he was alive. A person declared ill attended a special mass during which a list of prohibitions that had to be followed was read out, incl. she could not get married and contact her family. In the leprosarium, the patient was given personal items – clothes and cutlery. The situation of lepers did not change until the era of the Crusades.

One of the lepers was the King of Jerusalem, Baldwin IV, who was even nicknamed the Leper. From the age of 9, he suffered from leprosy. The lepers began to be treated more humanly, and caring for them began to be considered a Christian duty. It was then that the Knightly and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus from Jerusalem was established, which helped in the care of lepers. The law takes its name from Lazarus, who is the patron saint of lepers. And Baldwin himself was not forgotten – he became the hero of Zofia Kossak-Szczucka’s novel “The Leper King”. Edward Norton starred in the movie “Kingdom of Heaven” directed by Ridley Scott, King of Jerusalem.

The end of the leprosy plague in Europe coincided with the spread of other diseases, in particular the plague known as the Black Death. The lepers, whose immune systems were very weakened, had no chance against the plague and died.

Editors recommend:

1. Doctor Wanda Błeńska: “Mother of lepers”
2. «People are afraid of us, they push us away. Once I heard: What did you burn yourself with? »
3. The world’s strangest diseases

Poles in the service of lepers

Leprosy appeared in Poland in the second half of the thirteenth century, and the apogee of its incidence falls in the fifteenth century. The patients were treated in leprosy e.g. in Krakow and Sandomierz. They helped, among others, in caring for the sick knights of the Order of St. Lazarus. Apparently, Saint Kinga, the daughter of the Hungarian king Bela IV and the wife of Bolesław the Chaste, visited shelters for lepers and helped to look after them.

Few lepers survived the plague and the disease remained hidden for a long time. Again, leprosy appeared on a large scale in the XNUMXth century. People who first systematized and organized care for lepers in the second half of the XNUMXth century. former bl. Damian de Vuster and the Polish Jesuit Blessed Jan Beyzym. They both lived among the lepers, built hospitals, changed the perception of lepers among healthy people, and supported them spiritually.

An important figure in the fight for the well-being of lepers was also a Polish woman, Wanda Błeńska. In the years 1951-1994 she worked at the leprosy treatment center in Buluba on Lake Victoria in Uganda. She was a general practitioner for over 30 years. Under her rule, a small institution run by Franciscans from Ireland grew and turned into a modern treatment and training center. Błeńska was given the nickname of the Mother of Lepers from Poznań. Her hospital had a place for adults, a children’s ward, homes for lepers, and a church that now bears her name. After completing her mission, she returned to her hometown of Poznań. She died on November 27, 2014.

World Lepers Day

Modern people from Europe associate leprosy mainly with the Middle Ages and the island of lepers – Spinalogawhich is one of the greatest tourist attractions in Crete. However, there are still places in the world where leprosy is doing well. However, thanks to WHO’s efforts and effective treatment, we hear less and less about it.

January 26 is the World Lepers Day. This holiday has been celebrated since 1954, on the last Sunday of January. The initiator of the World Lepers Day was the French poet, journalist and traveler Raoul Follereau. In Poland, since 1995, the organization of this day has been the responsibility of the Polska Raoul Follereau Foundation. On World Lepers’ Day, special attention is paid to drawing the attention of the wealthy society to the problem of leprosy in the world.

The content of the medTvoiLokony website is intended to improve, not replace, the contact between the Website User and their doctor. The website is intended for informational and educational purposes only. Before following the specialist knowledge, in particular medical advice, contained on our Website, you must consult a doctor. The Administrator does not bear any consequences resulting from the use of information contained on the Website. Do you need a medical consultation or an e-prescription? Go to halodoctor.pl, where you will get online help – quickly, safely and without leaving your home.