ONE of Scotland’s many unsung medical heroes is Dr Isabel Kerr, whose pioneering work in the treatment of leprosy is often forgotten in her native land but not in India where her memory is revered.
It was in this week of 1932 that Dr Kerr died at the age of 57. She had devoted the last 25 years of her life to nursing sick people in India, particularly those afflicted with leprosy, and is reckoned to have saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives.
Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s Disease, has been a curse on the human species for thousands of years. The name comes from two Greek words that together mean scaly-skinned man – serious skin lesions are a common symptom of leprosy.