Leprosy in South Africa: a case study of Westfort Leper Institution, 1898-1948

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Periodical article

Title:	Leprosy in South Africa: a case study of Westfort Leper Institution, 1898-1948
Author:	Horwitz, Simonne
Year:	2006
Periodical:	African Studies
Volume:	65
Issue:	2
Pages:	271-295
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	health policy segregation leprosy 1900-1949 History and Exploration Health and Nutrition Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1080/00020180601035682
Abstract:	Westfort Leper Institution (7 miles west of Pretoria, South Africa), planned, built and run by the State, opened in 1898. For most of the period under discussion (1898-1948) Westfort housed between 100 and 300 patients - under prison-like conditions, according to former patients. Few countries came out as strongly on the side of isolation as a means of controlling leprosy during the early 20th century as South Africa did. Westfort leprosy patients were not only isolated from the outside world but were internally segregated along gender, class and racial lines. This paper argues that these divisions, evident in the physical segregation of the patients as well as in the way they were managed and in their access to facilities, were not a result of medical factors alone. Rather, broader concepts of race, class and gender informed the way in which patients were treated. Bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]