Gerhard Armauer Hansen that the leprosy acts of 1877 and 1885 were passed, leading to a steady decline of the disease in Norway from 1,800 known cases in 1875 to just 575 cases in 1901. His distinguished work was recognized at the International Leprosy Congress held at Bergen in 1909. Hansen had suffered from syphilis since the 1860s but died of heart disease. He was an atheist. Gerhard Armauer Hansen Gerhard Henrik Armauer Hansen (29 July 1841 – 12 February 1912) was a Norwegian physician, remembered for his identification of the bacterium "Mycobacterium leprae" in 1873 as the causative agent of leprosy. Hansen
Minamata disease of the people who sought compensation did not actually suffer from the disease. More properly, the impact should be called a criminal 'poisoning', not a clinical 'disease'. These forms of obfuscation are commonly experienced by 'environmental victims' in many countries. According to Timothy S. George, the environmental protests that surrounded the disease appeared to aid in the democratization of Japan. When the first cases were reported and subsequently suppressed, the rights of the victims were not recognised, and they were given no compensation. Instead, the afflicted were ostracised from their community due to ignorance about the disease, as people were