The Leprosy Museum, St Jørgen's Hospital, Bergen

Vestland · Norge · Hospital

You were admitted here never to leave again. Bergen was the leprosy capital of the 19th century – and the ward still stands with its beds in place.

St Jørgen's Hospital in central Bergen is first mentioned in 1411 and was set up for leprosy patients around the middle of the 1500s. In the 1800s Bergen was an international capital of leprosy, with three hospitals and the largest concentration of patients in Europe; it was here that the city physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen identified the leprosy bacillus in 1873. For those admitted, the house was the end of the line. Patients lived two to a small chamber around a dark courtyard, with the church at one end and the graveyard just outside. The complex is one of the best-preserved leprosy hospitals in Europe, with ten protected eighteenth-century buildings raised after the city fire of 1702. It has been a museum since 1970 – and the rooms remain furnished, as though the sick had just stepped out.

FAQ

Hvor ligger The Leprosy Museum, St Jørgen's Hospital, Bergen?

The Leprosy Museum, St Jørgen's Hospital, Bergen ligger i Vestland, Norge.