The thematic portal Fontilles and leprosy in Spain results from a collaboration between the Fontilles Foundation and the University of Alicante. It is indebted to the Sasakawa Health Foundation, which provided the necessary funds to recover, digitize and edit the extensive exhibition of journals, works, images, testimonies, documents and objects of Fontilles' historical heritage. These materials are now available to anyone interested in them and, above all, to those who, thanks to them, may be interested in the history of Fontilles and leprosy in Spain.
Fontilles library catalogue
Highlights
The Fontilles laboratory brought together a physical and spiritual conception of leprosy. The photo gallery presents several hundred snapshots of nearly three thousand lives that unfolded in the Fontilles Sanatorium for a century.
The dermatologist Manuel Zuriaga Soler produced graphs representing the family ties of people affected by leprosy in the municipality of Parcent. His aim was to support the theory that the disease was contagious rather than hereditary. His work illustrates the role of graphs in understanding and explaining this complex disease.
The Fontilles magazine is a valuable historical document that helps us to understand how daily life unfolded in the sanatorium as well as the principles underlying the institution's foundation and running for over a century. A complete and unique collection of this magazine has been reconstructed here. It gathers the volumes conserved in different libraries.
