The legacy of Brazil’s leper colonies

Leprosy Mailing List,
June 17th, 2009
Ref.: The legacy of Brazil’s leper colonies
From: Both P., Apeldoorn, The Netherlands

Dear Dr Noto,

You may recall that I responded earlier to an e-mail exchange following mail published in LML written by Ms Elisabeth Poorman, which was about the use of words, in that case ''elimination of leprosy''.

I read the first pages of the above mentioned article (LML May 30th, 2009) written by Ms Elisabeth Poorman about the legacy of Brazil's ''leper'' colonies and I wonder why the term ''leper'' appears. If this is just a reference to a word/name of a colony used in the past and in the context of un-masking ill-intentions of that time?

In that case I can understand the use of the term, but in the text of the article the term ''leper'' continues to be used, even in the context of research done in 2005 - 2007. I just don't understand! Although my interest in ''leprosy'' was raised in the 60th, when I read a book in which the life of patients was described in a colony/leprosarium in Brazil in those 60th, I lost my concentration to read the article to the ''bitter'' end.

Can Ms Poorman assure me I should continue to read and find the change in terminology somewhere as a clue to the un-masking of ill intentions of former leprosy workers?

The book I read about leprosy in Brazil gave me a very high esteem of the persons involved in care! I am not sure whether you would want to publish this at LML.

If you wish you could forward my question to Ms Elisabeth to her e-mail address which I do not have.

Yours sincerely,
Piet Both
TLM Country Development Director