Cand. philol. Sigurd Sandmo

Health work and medicine have always been an important part of protestant missions. The medical missionary represented both secular knowledge rooted in European science and medical education, and the Biblical connection between salvation and healing. To the NMS missions in Madagascar, leprosy, an illness of ancient religious metaphors, became a highly profiled task. In 1888 NMS established the big leper town of Ambohipiantrana in the Malagasy highlands, which was moved and renamed Mangarano in 1916. Both in size and standard these were ground-breaking leper colonies of the time. 
          One could suggest several reasons why leprosy became such an important matter to the Norwegians. First, the disease of the Bible emphasized the religious metaphors of medical missions and gave the mission useful tools for fund raising in Norway, where the disease was well known. Second, the Norwegian authorities were known for their successful struggle against leprosy in the nineteenth century and for their important role in international leprosy research. Norwegian missionaries could be trained at the famous leprosy institutions in Norway before departure to the missionary fields, and Norwegian physicians could give useful advice in dealing with the dangers of contagion in the Norwegian leper towns in Madagascar.  
          The work among the lepers was a struggle against a horrible threat to the Malagasy society, and was probably considered as such. Nevertheless, the disease also represented political opportunities for a small country like Norway to fulfil its missionary work in a country characterised by the political and missionary rivalry of more powerful countries and religious and political factions. British protestant missionaries were well established when the Norwegians arrived in the early 1880s, so were French Catholics and Jesuits. In 1895 Madagascar came under French rule and existing conflicts were sharpened. However, the Norwegian leprosy missions were considered as both politically and religiously harmless, and also in the interest of the new colonial rule. The Norwegian leprosy missions were, so to speak, legitimised by medical knowledge and experience, but nourished by religious metaphors. In Madagascar the disease played an important political role, making it possible for the Norwegians to establish themselves among rivalling participants of bigger size and power. This project will question how NMS used leprosy as a political metaphor when addressing both Malagasy and French authorities in Madagascar and how the disease was presented to the readers of NMS publications in Norway. The main sources will consist of archive material and printed publications in the NMS archive in Stavanger.