[Contributions of the Netherlands and its colonies to the knowledge of the cause of leprosy in the 19th century].

OBJECTIVE

To determine the Dutch contributions to the formulation of the concept that leprosy is an infectious disease.

DESIGN

Literature study.

METHOD

A search for relevant publications was made in the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde (Dutch journal of Medicine; NTvG) and the Geneeskundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië (Medical Journal of the Dutch Indies; GTNI) with the aid of the search terms 'lepra [leprosy]', 'lepra Arabum [Arab leprosy]', 'melaatsheid [leprosy]' and 'elephantiasis Graecorum [Greek elephantiasis]'. In addition, on the basis of references in the publications in the NTvG and the GTNI, as well as via searches in the catalogues of the Royal Library in The Hague and the libraries of Dutch universities, an inventory was made of the Dutch medical dissertations and other monographs on leprosy, as well as the medical historical review articles, from the 19th century.

RESULTS

For a long time, physicians described the aetiology of leprosy in terms of 'a substrate' to which all sorts of mixtures of infection, heredity and hygiene contributed. From the middle of the 19th century onwards, this explanatory model with multiple possible solutions gave way to a controversy between two explanatory models: heredity as an 'anti-contagious' principle versus contagiosity. These two explanatory models were mutually exclusive in their universal aspirations. The debate in the Netherlands took place in the field of tension between European concepts on the one hand and on the other hand ideas and practices resulting from the interaction between the Netherlands and its colonies. Inspired in part by the writings of the Dutch physician C L Drognat Landré, who based his contagion theory on observations in Surinam, the Norwegian G. H. A. Hansen discovered the leprosy bacillus in 1873. It was not until 1897, at the international leprosy conference in Berlin, however, that consensus was to be reached on leprosy being an infectious disease.

CONCLUSION

An essential contribution to the development of the contemporary ideas as to the cause of leprosy was made from the Netherlands.