Mortality profile of the St. Croix Leper Hospital

Summary

This is a poster submission presented at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Danish government established a leper hospital on the island of St. Croix in 1888 that operated until 1954. This research focuses on the healthcare and mortality of the St. Croix Leper Hospital residents. To establish a mortality profile for the resident population, name, age, and date of death for 240 residents from burial notices published in the St. Croix Avis newspapers from 1889 to 1928 were used in conjunction with demographic data collected from graves in Christiansted Cemetery. Furthermore, we explore if residents were dying from leprosy or due to secondary diseases. These patterns of death are compared to the mortality profile of the general St. Croix population buried in Christiansted allowing us to understand how colonial healthcare and public health policies affected the lives and deaths of the leper hospital residents.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• 2022 SHA Poster Submissions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology