Leprosy

The story of the word

λέπρα meant scaliness and covered a whole family of skin conditions, not one disease. That vagueness had consequences: the Septuagint used it to translate the Hebrew tsara'at, and later Bibles rendered the sufferer as a leper, so the ritual uncleanness attached to a broad category of skin complaints fastened itself onto one specific infection. Armauer Hansen identified the bacterium in Bergen in 1873, which is why the preferred modern name is Hansen's disease.

How it travelled

Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English

First recorded

1530s