01955nas a2200229   4500000000100000008004100001260001300042653001300055653003300068653002600101653002600127653001100153653001200164653002900176653001800205100001500223245007400238300001100312490000700323520138100330022001401711       2002                            d  c2002 Apr10aColombia10aCommunicable Disease Control10aHistory, 19th Century10aHistory, 20th Century10aHumans10aleprosy10aNational Health Programs10aPublic health1 aObregón D00aBuilding national medicine: leprosy and power in Colombia, 1870-1910.  a89-1080 v153 a<p>As imperialist nations rediscovered leprosy in their colonial world in the late nineteenth century, Colombian physicians found endemic leprosy in their own country. The medical community was interested in constructing a national medicine to conform to 'universal' science. To medicalize leprosy, doctors provoked fears through exaggerating the number of leprosy sufferers to demonstrate that charity was incapable of dealing with the problem. The government approved laws of compulsory segregation of leprosy patients in the 1890s, while the 1897 international conference on leprosy held in Berlin gave international sanction to isolation. Lepers actively resisted segregation as a violation of their individual rights. Dr Juan de Dios Carrasquilla studied the disease, experimented with sero-therapy to cure it, and claimed that the flea was its agent of transmission. He combatted segregation and proposed instead a hygienic programme to improve environmental living conditions, but his approach was defeated. When the early twentieth century saw the consolidation of the Colombian state, modernization of the country became a national priority. The government started to take control of lazarettos, enforcing segregation of lepers, who were confined within an area circumscribed by a sanitary cordon. This strategy was a failure, since patients resisted segregation.</p>  a0951-631X