Special coinages for persons suffering from leprosy (now often called “Hansen’s Disease”)—either purpose-struck or segregated regular issue—are a part of the numismatic history of several countries around the world. Americans are probably most familiar with the Philippine coinage for the Culion Leper Colony, but it’s the Colombian series of 1901 that is said to be the oldest such purpose-struck coinage. The 1901 series was brass, succeeded by copper-nickel for the inflationary series of 1907 and the new series of 1921, and then finally, brass again for this stand-alone 1928 50-centavo.
“Lazareto.” I assume the Spanish word is the equivalent of the English word “Lazaretto,” which Webster’s New World Dictionary defines as “a public hospital for poor people having contagious diseases,”and says came into the language from the Italian—“Venetian lazareto, nazareto, after “Venetian church Santa Madonna de Nazaret, used as a plague hospital in the 15th century.”
The special coinages were created, of course, to help contain the spread of the disease by further limiting opportunities for contagion, but also, in part, by creating an additional obstacle to would-be escapees.
Later it was learned that leprosy was much less contagious than originally thought, and leper colonies began to disappear. Their coinages went with them. Krause 2015, on Colombia’s experience: “The hospitals were closed in the late 1950s and patients were allowed to exchange these special coins for regular currency at any bank.”
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