Entre el contagio y la herencia: Las representaciones médicas de la lepra en el Puerto Rico del siglo XIX

Abstract

This article proposes to explain the reasons why, in Puerto Rico, in the last quarter of the 19th century, the state abandoned the sanitary policies which forced the isolation (quarantine) of lepers. Among the reasons for abandoning this policy was the change in medical representation that the disease experienced. The notion that leprosy was contagious was long-standing, which resulted in sanitary measures centered around isolating the affected. This was the case for centuries, until the middle of the 19th century when a new explanation was promulgated, which understood leprosy as a hereditary disease. As a result, forced quarantine was no longer seen as fulfilling any prophylactic/preventative function. At the end of the 1800s it was thought that the commingling
of those infected with leprosy alongside the uninfected population did not represent any health risk. Sanitary policy was directed toward removing the indigent victims of leprosy from the city, until 1889 when a barracks was built which functioned as a shelter, not a hospital. This notion of leprosy as a hereditary problem disappeared with the US invasion of 1898.