Look through a series of 15th-century woodcuts, and you'll find that the leper is as much an icon of medieval art as the crown or the cross. Leprosy was so common in Europe during the Middle Ages that ...

Find today’s readings here. When Jesus came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And then a leper approached, did him homage, and said, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” He ...

It is a disease most often associated with the ancient world. But contrary to assumptions that leprosy is extinct in the West, recent data from the Department of Health reveals there were 185 recorded ...

A leper colony has occupied the remote Kalaupapa Peninsula on the Hawaiian island of Moloka’i since the 1800s. Creative Commons A dark chapter in Hawaii’s history is coming to a close as the ...

Jierme Ciwai, 65, a leprosy sufferer, rests on a rock with one of her grandchildren in her arms in Abuluoha village, Butuo county, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. Photo: Li ...

In excavating the medieval site of the St. Mary Magdalen hospital cemetery and chapel in Winchester, England, researchers were looking to genotype a strain of leprosy. They wanted to shed light on the ...

Mystery and misconceptions continue to surround the biblical scourge contracted by at least 250,000 people each year. There was a time and a place when, if one wanted to be canonized, going to a leper ...

The tooth from a young woman who died in a Scandinavian leper colony in the 1300s has now provided key evidence for scientists studying the evolution of pathogens. Leprosy, like tuberculosis and the ...

Leprosy is much less common today than it was during the Middle Ages, but the bacterium that causes this debilitating disease has hardly changed since then, a new study finds. Researchers sequenced ...

A prisoner with a history of leprosy who had visible lesions was allowed to circulate among hundreds of other inmates at two Minnesota prisons for nearly two months this spring after prison medical ...