author
G. Armauer (Gerhard Armauer) Hansen
1841–1912
Best known for identifying the bacterium that causes leprosy, this Norwegian physician helped change medicine’s understanding of infectious disease. His 1873 discovery was so influential that leprosy later became widely known as Hansen’s disease.
1 Audiobook
Leprosy : in its clinical & pathological aspects
by G. Armauer (Gerhard Armauer) Hansen, Carl Looft
About the author
Born in Bergen, Norway, in 1841, Gerhard Henrik Armauer Hansen trained as a physician and went on to build his career in the study of leprosy. He is remembered above all for identifying Mycobacterium leprae in 1873, linking the disease to a specific bacterium at a time when many people still believed leprosy was hereditary or caused by miasma.
Hansen’s work became a landmark in medical history because it helped show that chronic human disease could be caused by microorganisms. That discovery changed how leprosy was understood around the world, and the illness later came to be widely called Hansen’s disease in his honor.
He died in 1912. Today, Hansen is still recognized as one of Norway’s most important medical figures and as a key pioneer in the early history of bacteriology.