Gerhard Henrik Armauer Hansen – A legend

Gerhard Henrik Armauer Hansen radicalized the views on leprosy when he discovered the leprosy bacilli in 1873. He was a man born in a humble background but with perseverance finished medicine at the University of Christiania and later joined as assistant physician under another stalwart Danielssen at St. Jogren’s Hospital, Bergen. It was here that he made the greatest discovery of his time, but it would be years before, he was truly acknowledged for his work. His theory of contagion helped in the measures to control leprosy in the form of leprosy acts. Hansen passed away in 1912, and his name remains engraved in the pages of the history of leprosy.