What Leprosy’s Dark Past Teaches Us About Quarantining the Sick

Fear, isolation, and the human cost of controlling outbreaks.

This image depicts a close anterior view of a patient’s chest, highlighting a large, tuberculoid, circinate cutaneous lesion that had been due by a case of leprosy, caused by the Gram-positive bacterium, Mycobacterium leprae. (Image via CDC’s Public Health Image Library. Public Domain.)

In August 1908, John Early traveled to Washington, DC, from North Carolina to ask for his military pension. He served in the United States Army from the age of 23 to 32. Because of the injuries to his skin in the military, he acquired an infection with Mycobacterium leprae. The bacteria cause the skin to become full of lesions caused by the immune system’s reaction to the infection. The disease is now known as Hansen’s disease, but you may know it by its ancient name: Leprosy.

Early Descriptions of Leprosy

Hansen’s disease leaves traces in ancient texts across civilizations. In China, the Nei Ching (circa 500 BCE) describes symptoms like skin nodules and numbness, linking them to a mysterious illness. Similarly, Greek historian Herodotus (484–425 BCE) documented a “white sickness” afflicting Persians, associating it with divine punishment for sin. By the 5th century BCE, Alexander the Great’s campaigns may have spread the disease from India to Egypt and Greece, embedding it in Mediterranean cultures.

These early accounts reveal a profound misunderstanding of the disease. Ancient societies often viewed it as a moral failing or curse, leading…