Vida de leprosa: the testimony of a woman living with Hansen's disease in the Peruvian Amazon, 1947

摘要

This is the narrative of a patient made before, during and after being incarcerated in an agricultural colony in the Peruvian Amazon. In a vivid style, it narrates the decay of the body, the stigma and the compulsive segregation, as well as the hope for a better life. It is the perspective of a patient, something that is difficult to find when researching the history of health. The original publication was possible thanks to the German physician Maxime H. Kuczynski-Godard and thanks to the Institute of Social Medicine of the University of San Marcos that was directed by the professor of hygiene Carlos Enrique Paz-Soldán. We have used this publication for this transcription. Kuczynski-Godard was a German medical doctor that arrived in Peru in the mid 1930s and organized valuable activities in the Peruvian jungle as apart of an effort, which eventually failed, of the Peruvian State to colonize, or really to ''civilize'' the Amazon.