Leprosy, now commonly known as Hansen disease is one of the world’s oldest and most feared maladies disease. In over a thousand years the illness has managed to afflict millions of people all around the world. For centuries throughout many cultures and religions the disease was seen as a punishment from Gods or Goodness and divinely inspired and thought to be highly contagious. During the Middle Ages there was widespread beliefs about the causation of leprosy. As a result individuals who had symptoms of the illness faced many indignities and often removed from society and establish their own communities known as “Leper Colonies”. The several of ways the leprosy epidemic was so big was because the intimate relationship between sin and the disease,
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The earliest evidence of the disease is provided in the “Vedas” ancient text that is the most sacred scriptures in Hinduism. The Vedas are a collection of manuscripts written in Sanskrit from about 1200 B.C.E. to 100 C.E. The leper disease was extremely prevalence in early Christianity since the bible describes a story in Leviticus 13.46 proposes that a person who has skin blemishes, spot of inflammation or swelling should appear before a priest to be diagnosis the illness. The original Hebrew word used to describe the spiritual uncleanness of individual that is associated with skin problems was “tsara’ah or zara ‘at”. When the words were translated by the Greeks “zara’at” was change into the word lepra, which means scaled skin. The Greek word leprosy, as we know it today is now referred to as elephantiasis. During the 11th century, the word lepra was continuing to be used despite that the disease associated with individual skin condition was completely different. This series of translation and mistranslation led to confusion when person was diagnosis in biblical times and also in the Middle Ages. The first evidence of the disease in England comes from the 4th century Romano-British cemetery in Dorchester, but it not until the Norman Conquest that institutional provision was made to help individuals who had contracted the
The earliest evidence of the disease is provided in the “Vedas” ancient text that is the most sacred scriptures in Hinduism. The Vedas are a collection of manuscripts written in Sanskrit from about 1200 B.C.E. to 100 C.E. The leper disease was extremely prevalence in early Christianity since the bible describes a story in Leviticus 13.46 proposes that a person who has skin blemishes, spot of inflammation or swelling should appear before a priest to be diagnosis the illness. The original Hebrew word used to describe the spiritual uncleanness of individual that is associated with skin problems was “tsara’ah or zara ‘at”. When the words were translated by the Greeks “zara’at” was change into the word lepra, which means scaled skin. The Greek word leprosy, as we know it today is now referred to as elephantiasis. During the 11th century, the word lepra was continuing to be used despite that the disease associated with individual skin condition was completely different. This series of translation and mistranslation led to confusion when person was diagnosis in biblical times and also in the Middle Ages. The first evidence of the disease in England comes from the 4th century Romano-British cemetery in Dorchester, but it not until the Norman Conquest that institutional provision was made to help individuals who had contracted the