Impactul bolilor contagioase asupra imaginarului colectiv: cazul leprei în context istoric, epidemiologic și etnocultural

Abstract

Contagious diseases - plague, smallpox, cholera, leprosy - have harvested millions of lives throughout history in different parts of the world. Most of the time, people were vulnerable to contagious diseases, the impact of which, in epidemic and pandemic forms, was devastating for the whole society. The disease of leprosy had its own specificity, offering those affected by this disease, a much longer life perspective compared to the plague or cholera that ended human life in just a few days. At the same time, lepers became the unpleasant to the society, fueling multiple prejudices and phobias, which appeared on the background of not knowing the medical subtleties of the disease. People's fear of lepers created favorable conditions for the emergence of phantasmagoric perceptions and conspiracy theories about people with „lion faces” and „elephant feet”.