The history of leprosy in Dubrovnik: an overview

Abstract

Leprosy or lepra is an infectious skin disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae which predominantly affects the skin, peripheral nerves and the mucous membrane of the upper respiratory tract and oral cavity and which – in spite of today’s efficient treatment – represents a public health problem in some countries of the world. It is also called Hansen’s disease, named after Norwegian physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen (1841. – 1912.) who had discovered its originator in Bergen in 1871 (1-3). The disease was known as early as in classical antiquity, whereby its Greek name lepra was derived. It is characterized by a low level of contagiousness and possibility of mutilations.. The disease apparently originated in East Africa and spread by human migrations so that Europeans and North Africans brought it to West Africa and America during the past 500 years. In Croatia, the last sporadic cases in the Croatian Littoral and Dalmatia were recorded in the mid-20th century. In 1956, the last case of leprosy was recorded in Blizna, a small village near Trogir, which Stanimirovic et al established to be an endemic region in the Republic of Croatia.