Gnawing Pains, Festering Ulcers and Nightmare Suffering: Selling Leprosy as a Humanitarian Cause in the British Empire, c. 1890–1960

Abstract

When British attention was drawn to the issue of leprosy in the empire, humanitarian organisations arose to take on responsibility for the ‘fight against leprosy’. In an effort to fund raise for a distant cause at a time when hundreds of charities competed for the financial support of British citizens, fundraisers developed propaganda to set leprosy apart from all other humanitarian causes. They drew on leprosy's relationship with Christianity, its debilitating symptoms and the supposed vulnerability of leprosy sufferers in order to mobilise Britain's sense of humanitarian, Christian and patriotic duty. This article traces the emergence of leprosy as a popular imperial humanitarian cause in modern Britain and analyses the narratives of religion, suffering and disease that the charities created and employed in order to fuel their growth and sell leprosy as a British humanitarian cause.