A Currency for Colonies: The Strange Story of "Leprosy Money"

Ridiculous History

iHeartPodcasts

History, Society & Culture

4.2 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2021

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For thousands of years people across the planet lived in fear of leprosy (now known as ‘Hansen's Disease). In many cases, people infected with the disease, or even just suspected of having it, were carted off to isolated colonies where they would be doomed to live the rest of their lives without any access to the outside world. These colonies became their own active communities -- there were blacksmiths, traders, cooks, merchants and more. And this meant the residents of these communities needed some sort of currency. However, they weren't allowed to use 'outside' cash for fear of contaminating it. This led to the rise of something known as "Leprosy Money." Tune in to learn how we got here, and what happened to this currency in the modern day.

Transcript

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1:58.0	Welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you so much for tuning in today's
2:04.8	episode touches on some pretty stigmatized disturbing things, but it's a fascinating story,
2:11.3	and it reminds me of our earlier episodes on currency. Remember those, no?
2:17.6	Yeah, what was the word for a currency enthusiast or a collector of coins?
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