From the African colonies to the Third Reich: the work of the German government against leprosy from the second half of the nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth

Abstract

Though not an epidemiological problem in Germany in this period, leprosy raised singular political and scientific interests of the country’s political authorities. Th e political, social, and scientifi  turmoil experienced by the country during this period served as a specter for remarkable actions - not hitherto considered historically - to understand and control this millennial disease. Relying on original primary sources, this article intends to analyze the work of the German government against leprosy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and highlight the contributions of this work toward the process of developing solutions to the problem of leprosy in this period, expanding the investigative horizons on the subject.