Gerhard Henrik Armauer Hansen (29 July 1841 – 12 February 1912) was a Norwegian physician, remembered for his identification of the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae in 1873 as the causative agent of leprosy.
Hansen was born in Bergen and studied medicine at the Royal Frederik's University (now the University of Oslo), gaining his degree in 1866. He served a brief internship at the National Hospital in Christiania (Oslo) and as a doctor in Lofoten. ...
more
Gerhard Henrik Armauer Hansen (29 July 1841 – 12 February 1912) was a Norwegian physician, remembered for his identification of the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae in 1873 as the causative agent of leprosy.
Hansen was born in Bergen and studied medicine at the Royal Frederik's University (now the University of Oslo), gaining his degree in 1866. He served a brief internship at the National Hospital in Christiania (Oslo) and as a doctor in Lofoten. In 1868 Hansen returned to Bergen to study leprosy while working with Daniel Cornelius Danielssen, a noted expert.
Leprosy was regarded as largely hereditary or otherwise miasmic in origin. Hansen concluded on the basis of epidemiological studies that leprosy was a specific disease with a specific cause. In 1870-71 Hansen travelled to Bonn and Vienna to gain the training necessary for him to prove his hypothesis. In 1873, he announced the discovery of Mycobacterium leprae in the tissues of all sufferers, although he did not identify them as...
less
