I remember watching a documentary about a Greek town where they would send people with Leprosy. Why was leprosy such a big deal if 95% of people are immune to it?
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As others have said, before the modern era, physicians weren’t particularly consistent with diagnosing skin conditions, so a lot of dermatological conditions were likely classified as “leprosy” which probably gave a mistaken impression of how common it was.
However, the reason people were sent to leper colonies instead of living in communities is more due to fear of disfigurement from the disease rather than because it was especially contagious. Smallpox was much more common than leprosy and much more fatal, but didn’t require people to be isolated. People were just very scared of a slow growing, disfiguring disease, and they believed it could be spread by touch or “bad air” so they just isolated people unnecessarily.
It wasn’t until the twentieth century before we realized leprosy was one disease and it was caused by mycobacterium. We also discovered that it wasn’t as contagious as previously thought and it could be treated with long courses of antibiotics.
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