Gerhard hansen biography

          Who discovered leprosy vaccine

        1. He was born in Bergen, Norway in in a Danish family.
        2. Leprosy
        3. Gerhard Henrik Armauer Hansen was a Norwegian physician, remembered for his identification of the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae in as the causative agent of leprosy.
        4. Humble beginning.

          5. Leprosy.

          The curious doctor who changed the world

          In the 1800s, leprosy became an increasing problem in Norway. The disease had been known since the Viking Age, but the disease now seemed to be rapidly on the rise, particularly in the small towns along the fjords of Western Norway.

          Those affected gradually lost sensitivity and movement in the face and hands, or developed painful, pus-filled and foul-smelling nodular lesions or growths in the skin, especially on the nose and ears, around the eyes and on fingers and toes.

          Photo:

          Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen


          “Little was known about the causes of illness at that time.

          Physicians had multiple – and competing – theories, while the general population understood the condition to be destiny or a punishment from God. Theologians described leprosy as being present both on Earth and in purgatory at the same time, says science historian Magnus Vollset.

          But as the young Bergen doctor Gerhard Armauer Hansen was to find out later that cent