Leprosy in Colonial South India is not only a history of a disease, it is also a history of colonial power in 19th-century British India as seen through the lens of British medical and legal encounters with leprosy and its sufferers. The book offers a detailed examination of the contribution of leprosy treatment and legislative measures to negotiated relationships between indigenous and British medicine and the colonial impact on indigenous class formation, while asserting the agency of the poor and vagrant leprous classes in their own history.

Leprosy in Colonial South India is not only a history of a disease, it is also a history of colonial power in 19th-century British India as seen through the lens of British medical and legal encounters with leprosy and its sufferers. The book offers a detailed examination of the contribution of leprosy treatment and legislative measures to negotiated relationships between indigenous and British medicine and the colonial impact on indigenous class formation, while asserting the agency of the poor and vagrant leprous classes in their own history.