The history of leprosy in Ethopia to 1935

Abstract

Leprosy has for centuries been prevalent in Ethiopia. Ethiopian Christians were well aware of Biblical references to the disease; their literature also contains many legends of miraculous cures. Ethiopians, perhaps for this reason, adopted a much more tolerant attitude to the disease than was common in the West. Lepers were, however, in large measure isolated from the rest of the population, but were permitted to beg at court and around churches, and to accompany the army on expeditions. Leper mendicants were allowed to accost and even to threaten the public with remarkable impunity. Ethiopians seem traditionally to have been largely unaware that leprosy was contagious - they regarded it rather as an inherited complaint. They sought to cure it in numerous ways: by prayer and amulets, by medicines for internal and external application, by medicated vapour baths, and by immersion in thermal pools. Foreign medicines, mainly from the Arab world and Europe, began to exert limited influence only in the nineteenth century. The first leprosarium was established at Harrar, in 1901, and the second at Akaki, just outside Addis Ababa, in 1934.