01709nas a2200253   4500000000100000008004100001260000900042653001600051653002400067653001200091653001800103653002600121653001200147653002200159653001300181100001300194245009100207856005300298300001100351490000700362050001600369520105600385022001401441       2003                            d  c200310aColonialism10aCongresses as Topic10aGermany10aGlobal health10aHistory, 19th Century10aleprosy10aPatient Isolation10aPolitics1 aPandya S00aThe first international leprosy conference, Berlin, 1897: the politics of segregation.  uhttp://www.scielo.br/pdf/hcsm/v10s1/a08v10s1.pdf  a161-770 v10  aPANDYA 20033 a<p>The present paper examines the first attempts to internationalize the problem of leprosy, a subject hitherto overlooked by historians of imperialism and disease. The last decade of the nineteenth century saw many in the 'civilized countries' of the imperialist West gripped by a paranoia about an invasion of leprosy via germ-laden immigrants and returning expatriates who had acquired the infection in leprosy-endemic colonial possessions. Such alarmists clamoured for the adoption of vigorous leper segregation policies in such colonies. But the contagiousness of leprosy did not go unquestioned by other westerners. The convocation in Berlin of the first international meeting on leprosy revealed the interplay of differing and sometimes incompatible views about the containment of leprosy by segregation. The roles of officials from several countries, as well as the roles of five protagonists (Albert Ashmead, Jules Goldschmidt, Edvard Ehlers, Armauer Hansen, and Phineas Abraham) in the shaping of the Berlin Conference are here examined.</p>  a0104-5970