Leprosy, or Hansen's disease, is one of the few human maladies whose history can be traced in cultures with radically different medical traditions and disease nosologies. Although its exact mode of transmission remains unclear even today, the disfiguring skin lesions, numbness, and progressive debilitation caused by the Mycobacterium leprae microorganism made leprosy a particularly dreaded disorder in many societies. Leprosy has long attracted the attention of medical historians of other world regions. Angela Ki Che Leung's exquisitely researched monograph is the first to examine the centuries-long history of this disease in China.
The book has two goals. First, the author analyzes changes and continuities in Chinese medical ideas, religious beliefs, and social practices surrounding leprosy over the longue durée, from the second century bce to the present. Second, she places the modern history of Chinese leprosy within the global context of colonialism and the international politics of race. Each...
