Paul Brand Research Paper

Paul Brand: Helping Hands

Brand’s goal was to find a cure for leprosy. In India, leprosy is a well- known disease that spreads very easily. Leprosy can cause permanent damage to skin if left untreated, it could also lead to a painful death (Leprosy Fact sheet N°101). Leprosy has been around since before the New Testament. In Mark 1:40, Jesus heals a leper by asking him to bathe in the river. In the Bible days, lepers were thrown out of their homes and cities, because the disease could spread so easily. The lepers were left to die on the streets. There was no one to help these poor innocent lepers. Many times, they were eaten by wolves. Every time someone walked by the leper had to shout, “unclean!” as a warning or as protection.

In 1946,

Paul Brand was a missionary to India. Brand’s goal was to find a cure for leprosy. Leprosy is a well know disease in India, that spreads very easily. Leprosy can cause permanent damage to skin if left untreated, it could also lead to a painful death (Leprosy Fact sheet N°101). Leprosy has been around since before the New Testament. In Mark 1:40, Jesus heals a leper by asking him to bathe in the river. In the Bible days, lepers were thrown out of their homes and cities, because the disease could spread so easily. The lepers were left to die on the streets. There was no one to help these poor innocent lepers. Many times, they were eaten by wolves. Every time someone walked by the leper had to shout, unclean, as a warning or as

He pioneered a form of reconstructive surgery that transplanted tendons. This represented a leap forward in the rehabilitation of people with leprosy, showing that it was possible to overcome the paralysis of the intrinsic and restore the mobility of the so called “clawed hand.” It was largely because of Brand's work that the prevention of impairment and disability have become such an integral part of leprosy control programs around the world (ALM 2018).

Paul Wilson Brand, the pioneering missionary surgeon who wrote a series of books connecting the Christian faith and medicine, died Tuesday, July 1,2003, after several weeks in a coma following a fall in his Seattle home.

Born to missionary parents in the mountains of southwestern India in 1914, Brand attended London University, where he met his wife Margaret Berry. The two surgeons returned to Vellore, India, to teach at the Christian Medical College and Hospital.

While working as the school's first professor of orthopedics and hand research, Brand pioneered surgical work with those suffering from Hansen's disease, a bacterial infection more commonly known as leprosy. He was the first surgeon to use reconstructive surgery to correct deformities caused by the disease in the hands and feet, and developed many other forms of prevention