Leprosy Treatment: Indigenous and British Approaches

Abstract

In the British medical tradition leprosy was believed to be incurable and, despite the promise of gurjon oil and other late-nineteenthcentury treatments, it remained so until the discovery of Dapsone in the 1940s. The lack of any specific British treatment for leprosy was, particularly prior to the publication of Danielssen and Boeck’s findings in 1848, partly due to uncertainty as to what actually constituted the disease, and, until Hansen’s discovery of the leprosy bacillus in 1875, partly to ignorance of its true cause. In the Siddha tradition, however, some forms of leprosy were regarded as curable, probably because some of the diseases classified as leprosy were not forms of leprosy at all and were responsive to Siddha treatments. The Kaṉmakāṇṭam, attributed to Agastyar, advised the leprosy sufferer that if he or she ‘listens to the doctor and does all that he says, death can be averted’. According to the Citta maruttuvam, ten forms of leprosy were incurable, while ‘the rest may be cured with proper treatment, medication and the disciplining of body and mind’.¹