A Research On Leprosy And Its Management In The Dutch East Indies In The 19th And 20th Centuries

Leprosy is an ancient disease that was prevalent in Western Europe around the Middle Ages.It began to spread around the world with the colonial expansion around the 17th century.It was during this period that the leprosy outbreak in the Dutch East Indies.Western colonists treated leprosy in much the same way as they did in medieval Western Europe,believing that leprosy was terrifyingly infectious and hereditary.In the 18th and 20th centuries the Dutch colonial government repeatedly bounced back and forth between hereditary and contagiousness,but for the most part stuck to the idea of hereditary.With the progress of modern medicine,leprosy has been proved to be a chronic infectious disease caused by Hansen’s bacillus.However,the Dutch colonial government did not take strong quarantine measures,because the idea of heredity was the most economical one,and if the society accepted the idea of infectious disease,it meant that the colonial government had to spend a lot of money to prevent and control the spread of leprosy.In 1897,The First International Conference on leprosy was held in Berlin.The conference established the idea that leprosy was an infectious disease and called on the world to isolate leprosy patients.The Dutch colonial government began to restore the isolation measures,set up new isolation hospitals,and on this basis continuously improved the regional medical construction,built medical schools to train indigenous doctors,and so on.But due to financial constraints,the Dutch colonial government did not fully engage in the fight against leprosy in its later years.It left to missionaries and private institutions.This also reflected from the side that the colonists always centered on their own interests in the battle and constantly sought a balance between society and disease to maximize their interests.The process of Dutch colonists fighting against leprosy in the East Indies was also a process of the interaction between colonial culture and indigenous culture.In terms of stigmatization,leprosy has always been stigmatized as a moral degradation;During the colonial period,stigmatization was associated with racism and brought a higher degree of stigmatization to the indigenous patient community.Before the colonists arrived,there was no obvious discrimination and exclusion against leprosy patients in Java.Today,the leprosy community is marginalized and ostracized by society,an effect undoubtedly brought about by Western colonists.Of course,we can’t deny that the colonists left a legacy in the process of fighting leprosy,such as the improvement of the medical system and the establishment of a large number of medical schools,which laid the foundation for modern social governance.