INTRODUCTION

China is believed to have played a critical role in the global leprosy pandemic that began in the mid-19th century, because it is considered that China is the main exporter of leprosy. These allegations of racial resentment are particularly evident in Australia. In Australia, leprosy is a relatively unfamiliar disease. They regard the arrival of a lepromatous immigrant as a cause for the leprosy epidemic. There is a one-sided stereotype of early Chinese immigrant groups in Australian history. With this knowledge and belief in the theory that leprosy is inherited, “a lepromatous immigrant” is often considered to be a Chinese worker. As the contagion of leprosy was confirmed, the rumor became more convincing. Chinese leprosy patients are regarded as the most dangerous and least welcome group in Australia. This fear was caused by the ethnic consciousness and degenerate ideology of the time, and the mystery of leprosy led to the exaggeration of the infectiousness of leprosy. In order to protect the white community from infection, the Australian authorities have adopted mandatory management measures. The issue of Chinese in Australia has always been a hot research topic. The problem of Chinese leprosy is scattered in disease research in Australia, and there are very few thematic narrations of Chinese leprosy patients. This article introduces the role of the Chinese in the leprosy epidemic in Australia and the discrimination that the Chinese have suffered in the leprosy control policy in Australia. The study of leprosy in Australia in the 19th century and its prevention and treatment measures can provide a glimpse into the understanding of the disease at the time and a more comprehensive understanding of the living conditions of Chinese immigrants.

“THE ORIGIN OF THE LEPROSY IS CHINESE”

The notion that The Chinese are the origin of leprosy is not unique to Australia, and even China was considered a global “reservoir” of the disease that spread it to the Pacific at a time when leprosy was sweeping the world(Bashford,2004). In the early 1870s, American public opinion began to condemn Chinese immigrants for bringing leprosy to the United States. In 1871, a Chinese leper was diagnosed and regarded as the beginning of American “invasion”(Shah,2001, pp.99-100). San Francisco authorities sent him to a smallpox hospital, where he was detained with other patients suffering from a malignant infectious disease. A few years later, Chinese leprosy patients at the hospital were segregated from whites, and the authorities even extradited some to Hong Kong. In Hawaii, leprosy is also known as “Ma 'i pake”, or “Chinese disease”. It is believed that leprosy did not exist in Hawaii before the arrival of Chinese immigrants. Later, the accusations against Chinese people in the United States and Hawaii were proved to be groundless. Wright (1889) conducted a comprehensive study on the history and geographic environment of leprosy, pointing out that the North American disease originated in Europe. It is worth noting that during the early stages of European migration to North America, cases of leprosy were introduced by Scandinavian, Spanish, British and French immigrants from all parts of the European continent. Then Dr. Denny (1927, pp.391-398) published an objective account of the situation in the United States. In 1916, Dr. Mouritz (1916, pp.20-30) published a well-documented article on the history of leprosy in Hawaii, showing that American missionaries had already noticed the existence of leprosy in Hawaii as early as the 1820s.

However, in Australia, the rumor that the Chinese are the source of leprosy seems to be the default answer. In many works on Australian leprosy, no experts have analyzed and studied the authenticity and scientificity of this conclusion, but it is directly assumed that the Australian leprosy was brought in by the Chinese. Suzanne Parry, an expert on the history of leprosy in Australia, said:

It is generally agreed that leprosy was brought to northern Australia by Chinese immigrants, and that the first person in the Northern Territory known to have leprosy was a Chinese man whose illness was reported in 1882 (Parry,2003, p.2).

Cecil Cook (1927, p.37), the chief medical officer of the Northern Territory, asserted that “Chinese indentured labour, brought to the Territory in 1874, was responsible for the introduction of leprosy”; Bashford, an Australian historian and academic, wrote in her book:

The disease was initially associated with the Chinese population, as well as with South Pacific Islanders in northern New South Wales and Queensland, many of whom had come to Australia as indentured labourers( Bashford＆ Maria Nugrnt,2001, p.110).

At that time, the accusation that the Chinese were the root cause of leprosy in Australia was mainly based on two points: first, in the early stage of leprosy, Chinese patients accounted for the majority. From the statistics of leprosy patients in Australia , in Table 1(as cited in Bashford, 2004, p.95), it can be seen that during the period from 1860 to 1900, leprosy patients came mainly from China and Chinese patients up to half of the total number. Moreover, in most places, the first cases of leprosy are usually Chinese.

TABLE 1 NATIONALITY OF RECORDED CASES OF LEPROSY IN

AUSTRALIA

The second reason is that before the arrival of European settlers in Australia, the indigenous people of Australia did not carry the disease. J.A .Thompson(1897), Chief Medical Officer of New South Wales, is also a leprosy specialist. He investigated the situation of leprosy in various regions of Australia from the first leprosy to all cases before 1897. In his report, the source and the issue of transmission were explored, he pointed out that before the arrival of Europeans, there were no cases of leprosy among the native Australian. But there is no evidence to prove leprosy did not exist in Australia before the Chinese arrived.

We can find in the travel diaries of early Australian adventurers. They suspected cases of leprosy appeared many times before the 1850s, but they were not sure it is whether leprosy or a similar skin disease. Samuel Kittle has documented:

Colds and fevers are among their (the aboriginals of Port Jackson) ordinary complaints, and some of them are troubled with a disorder greatly resembling the itch. They call it Djee-ball. It is sometimes very virulent, and renders those afflicted with it extremely loathsome (Kittle,1815, p.212;as cited in Thompson, M.D.＆ D.P.H.,1897, p.25).

Charles Sturt also mentions in the records of his expedition that he discovered a terrible disease among the indigenous tribes, and explicitly uses the expression “leprosy”:

The most loathsome diseases prevailed among them. Several were disabled by leprosy, or some similar disorder, and two or three had entirely lost their sight… Leprosy of the most loathsome description, the most violent cutaneous eruptions, and glandular affections, absolutely raged through the whole of them (Sturt,2001, p.226).

It is obviously inaccurate to say that the Chinese are the source of leprosy according to these documents and records. From Australia’s early infection data, it can be seen that the Chinese are indeed the main infected population. Therefore, it is true that the Chinese have contributed to the spread of leprosy in Australia to a certain extent, but this does not mean that the Chinese are responsible for the introduction of leprosy bacilli. Moreover, the available documents does not make it clear that leprosy did not occur in Australia before the arrival of the Chinese. And, strangely, no scholars has studied the possibility that European immigrants brought leprosy to Australia before the 19th century, as they did in Americas. Thus, Australian seems to naturally associate the Chinese with the spread of leprosy.

Australians’ highly contagious and incurable fear of leprosy, coupled with the incitement of racists at the time, led to a strong rejection and fear of the Chinese eventually. People are increasingly convinced that the Chinese are the origin of leprosy in Australia. This statement caused Australian panic against Chinese people and intensified discrimination and prejudice against people of color, especially Chinese people in Australian society. This was consistent with the overall atmosphere of Australia's anti-Chinese movement at that time.

Anti-China racists can receive benefit from this atmosphere, and the spread of leprosy has become the cornerstone of their incitement to public opinion. Terrorist public opinion about this disease is usually launched by the working class. In the 1850s, after the discovery of gold mines in Australia, a large number of Chinese gold prospectors flooded in. The number of Chinese in the Victoria Gold Mine alone rose from 2,341 in 1854 to 42,000 in 1858(Zhang,1998, p.74), which aroused the concerns of white Australians. Cheap and hardworking Chinese quickly occupied the local labor market, squeezing the living space of white people. The increasing differences and frictions between whites and Chinese have led to the tragedy of whites using violence to drive Chinese away. By the 1880s, particularly in Queensland, strong anti-Chinese sentiment was concentrated on labor issues.

It is not accidental that the accusations against the Chinese and the actions to exclude the Chinese were carried out simultaneously. Thousands of Chinese workers came to Australia during the gold rush made a huge contribution to the early development of the Australian colonial area, which obviously alleviated the shortage of labor in Australia. It also created huge material wealth and provided an important source of fiscal revenue for the colonial government. However, in the late period of the gold rush, in the 1860s and 1870s, the gold mining industry gradually withered away and the supply of labor exceeded the demand. The decrease of gold production and the decrease of labor price caused the fear and hatred of Chinese workers among the white immigrants in the mining area. A segment of the white working class felt their interests were threatened. In the Pilot, an Australian colonist states the Chinese question in that country said:

the yellow man has invaded Australia in thousands: he competes with the white man in almost every industry…The Australian is fully convinced that the issue is one of life or death, and that where the Chinese are, there Europeans will, sooner or later, cease to be.( the Pilot, 2 August 1879)

And they blamed the Chinese for hygiene problem and complained that they polluted the river. Then they abused the Chinese for their addiction to opium. Of course, the disgusting leprosy is the main reason they discriminate against the Chinese. These radical views are widely spread in newspapers and magazines. Leprosy is imagined as a ghost whose image is portrayed as a grotesque Chinese with his hands hanging above his head like a skeleton, and underneath him stands a childlike, gentle but cunning Chinese fruit vendor holding out the symbol of both temptation and infection — the apple(Taylor, 23 October 1901, p.1425;as cited in Raymond Evans, Kay Saunders ＆ Kathryn Cronin,1993, p.292). According to William Lane, “if the influx of inferior races continued for the next fifty years then Australia will be the most leprous country in the world” (The Worker, 14 December 1895；as cited in Raymond Evans, Kay Saunders＆Kathryn Cronin,1993, p.303).

In fact, the concensus of opinion on the race issue was so marked throughout this entire period, it would appear that “. . . the characteristics of racism were in some way implicit in the whole structure of the society's thought, and it affects people's thinking subtly”(Rex,1970, p.156). Therefore, accusing the Chinese as the root cause of Australian leprosy comes from Australia's deep-rooted prejudice against the Chinese. They have always maintained this one-sided and stereotype of the early Chinese who came to Australia. The statement that “Chinese are the origin of leprosy” has a strong sense of racial discrimination from the beginning. In turn, this view deepened the discrimination against the Chinese. In Australia, this statement provides a seemingly legitimate reason for the anti-Chinese behavior.

METAPHOR OF LEPROSY: DISEASE OF INFERIOR RACE

Leprosy has tormented humans throughout recorded history. The earliest possible account of a disease that many scholars believe is leprosy appears in an Egyptian Papyrus document written around 1550 B.C. Around 600 B.C. Indian writings describe a disease that resembles leprosy. In Europe, leprosy first appeared in the records of ancient Greece after the army of Alexander the Great came back from India and then in Rome in 62 B.C. coinciding with the return of Pompeii's troops from Asia Minor(Li,2006, pp.2-3).

Although leprosy has a long history and has always attracted the attention of many researchers in medicine, leprosy is still the most mysterious disease. So far, the leprosy bacterium has not been isolated in vitro, and no corresponding vaccine has been produced, and its transmission mechanism remains unclear. Its history is also shrouded in many uncertainties. In ancient Greece, leprosy was always confused with various skin diseases. The vague understanding of his name and symptoms has aroused people's infinite imagination of leprosy. For a long time, the cause of leprosy is unknown, and there is a lack of effective treatment methods. It is regarded as an incurable disease. Factors such as leprosy are inherently contagious and will cause the cured person to suffer from disability or deformity, thus promoting the formation of leprosy metaphors. In particular, it is uncertain route of transmission caused a lot of speculation, which has been given some symbolic meaning to make it more complicated. Supporters of various statements used various evidences to confirm their own speculations, which made the public particularly fearful of leprosy.

The metaphor of leprosy will have different causes and connotations according to the period and country. Exploring the metaphor of leprosy in the Western world can generally be traced back to the Bible. The “Bible • Old Testament” describes in detail the method of judging leprosy. It determines whether the patient has unclean leprosy according to the changes in symptoms, and makes a certain distinction between skin diseases such as ringworm, sores, and scabies from leprosy. In addition, it also stipulates the treatment of people and objects suffering from leprosy and records complex cleansing rituals. According to the people and things related to leprosy recorded in the Bible, the most obvious feature or image of leprosy is “unclean”, and it is apparently a punishment from god. People associated with leprosy will be isolated from the group:

All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be. [13:46]

Judging from the stories related to leprosy, God sent leprosy as a means of punishment. The people were punished for various reasons. For instance, disrespect Jehovah, greedy for money, or do illegal things regardless of their status, etc. This makes people associate leprosy with various unethical behaviors. Lepers are regarded as morally corrupt, fornication, wicked, and unclean. They are punished by justice from heaven because of their sins. The terrible external symptoms caused by leprosy, as well as the claims surrounding its mysterious channels of transmission, make leprosy one of the most popular and persistent metaphors for degeneration, pollution, and moral flaws, not only for the individual but also for the collectivity(Sontag,1988).

With the progress of society and the changes in the context of the leprosy epidemic, the metaphor of leprosy also changes. In the 19th century, when leprosy caused global panic, the metaphor of leprosy had a new content: it shifted from a moral level to a racial level, which caused more political discussions. From the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, European medical circles had different opinions on the spread of leprosy. Before the discovery of Leprosy, genetics was the main hypotheses, which shared a belief that the disease was specific to certain races, especially the darker-skinned subspecies in hot countries. This idea was naturally in tune with the prevalent obsession of degeneration in Europe in this period. Those who believe that leprosy is hereditary are also convinced that it is racially related. Benjamin Hobson(1860, pp.558-559), of the London Missionary Society, the first British Protestant medical missionary to work in China, stated that leprosy is an inter-tropical disease that affecting the Chinese, Hindoos, Mohammedans, Africans and other people living within or on the borders of the tropics. This view was consistent with a later report by the Royal College of Physicians in 1867, which demonstrated leprosy mainly affects skin deep races in tropical region, including Chinese, Indian and half-breed.

At the same time, the disease was also seen as specific to races at a certain stage of civilization. Patrick Manson, the father of British tropical medicine, had done most of his fieldwork in southern China prior to the publication of his classic Tropical Diseases , in which he listed leprosy as a tropical disease and one, moreover, of semicivilization:

Savages are exempt; the highly civilized are exempt; but when the savage begins to wear clothes and lives in houses he becomes subject to the disease(Manson,1918, p.639).

They reckoned that leprosy affected people with genetic predisposition who lived in a miasma, polluted by a barbaric way of life and production. Clearly, the Chinese are considered to be one of these degenerated, semi-civilized races that live mainly in malaria-stricken areas. The claim that leprosy is a genetic disease owned by certain inferior races living in remote areas is objectionable to Chinese people. Ironically, it fits perfectly with the traditional Chinese concept of disease in the late imperial period, a notion that lasted until the Republican period (Angela ki chen leung,2013, p.166). In China, leprosy has been interpreted as a disease in the miasmas areas of the southern, spreading mainly among people who had not been nurtured by central China's civilisation, among low-moral classes, and semi-civilized lewd women. As Angela ki chen leung (2013, p.169), an expert on the history of leprosy in China, put it: “For the Chinese, southerners were the main victims; for the Westerners, all Chinese were southerners”.

However, the genetic theory that leprosy will only happen to the Chinese people has not convinced Western medical scholars, thereby reducing discrimination and hostility towards the Chinese people. On the contrary, and this view is connected with Western rhetoric about racial degradation, deepening the negative meaning given to leprosy and leprosy patients. And the rumors that the Chinese polluted Australia became even more convincing.

Asiatics and kanakas are of a different civilisation to ours. We cannot blend with them, unless at the cost of degrading our race to their bestial level. They are noted for their filthy and unclean habits, being satisfied to live in a much lower hygienic plan than the lowest member of our civilisation, and their peculiar susceptibility to dirt diseases makes their presence now a danger of greater gravity than ever(The Worker ,5 May 1900;as cited in Robertson,1999, p.252).

When leprosy appeared in Australia, it also made colonial administrators aware that Chinese indentured labor was a foreign pollutant that threatened the health of the colonial people. In Australia, leprosy was a heightened “hybridising danger”, for it was not only a highly stigmatised contagion, but one associated with sex and miscegenation (Bashford,2004, p.107). At the 1884 Sanitary Conference in Sydney, for example, the delegate from Western Australia confidently stated that leprosy was spread by ‘the prevalence of prostitution of white women to Chinese’. And a Queensland delegate argued that ‘we have never had the disease amongst the aboriginals in Queensland …Simply because the black women will not cohabit with the Chinese’ (The Australasian Sanitary Conference,1884, pp.17-25). Cook offered the theory of the sexual transmission of the disease thus:

Chinese and Pacific Islander men, infected elsewhere, entered the Australian colonies as immigrants or as indentured labourers in the nineteenth century. They had sex with Aboriginal women who later had sex with Aboriginal men and with white men(as cited in Bashford, p.108).

In 1873, Amor Hansen discovered the bacillus lepra, and since then officially determined the infectiousness of leprosy. The confirmation that leprosy was an infectious disease undoubtedly added to the public panic. What is even more frustrating is that the human immune system will not produce antibodies to this germ-in fact, separating the bacteria from the body seems like an impossible task. As a result, everyone was apparently confronted with a bacterium at large, on the rampage, invisible in its onset, not even presenting symptoms until well after it had taken hold slowly but inevitably (Robertson,1999, p.55). People uncontrollably imagine themselves in an environment full of leprosy bacteria, which is certainly frightening.

THE CONTROL OF CHINESE LEPER IN 19TH CENTURY

With the exception of Victoria, leprosy became endemic in each of these states, reaching epidemic proportions in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. As discovered cases of leprosy keep increasing in Table 2(as cited in Saunders,1989, p.8), white Australians fear they may be infected. They demanded immediate protection from what they considered to be a highly contagious and humiliating disease.

TABLE 2 RECORDE LEPROSY CASES IN AUSTRALIA

From the first case of leprosy were discovered in the states until the 1880s, people diagnosed with leprosy would be enforced to quarantine at home on their own. But it is often rejected by the nearby white community. As a result, it is common to choose a remote place with poor surroundings as a refuge for lepers. Those Chinese lepers who fell ill and were unable to work and had a difficult life were quarantined in leprosy camps. Those Chinese leprosy patients who are unable to work due to illness are quarantined in leprosy camps. Simple tents are used as shelter, food and daily necessities are distributed by friends or local police. The main source of income is donations from charities. Chinese patients live a very difficult life. Because of this disease, they are often abandoned by family and friends and can only be isolated in tents waiting for death.

But as leprosy spread, more and more people became infected. Five regions in Australia (Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland) have all formulated compulsory notifications for leprosy patients and established leprosy station to compulsorily isolate leprosy patients within a similar period of time.

In 1885 leprosy was declared “a dangerous, contagious and infectious disease” under the South Australian Public Health Acts Amendments Act, 1884, and in 1885, under provisions of the same Act, Mud Island was gazetted as a Leper Station (Parry,2003, pp.5-6). In Victoria, during 1888 an amending Public Health Act was passed. It contained provisions to the following effect:

The governor in council may from time to time direct that the middle quarantine station (at Point Nepean) or other suitable place be set apart for the reception and medical treatment of lepers, and may make regulations for the safe custody of lepers therein(Thompson, M.D.＆ D.P.H.,1897, p.129).

This Act enpowered the detention of lepers for the first time. On August 19th, 1889, the Central Board of Health in issued such regulations with reference to the diseases cholera, smallpox,…and leprosy, as follows:

Any householder who may have reason to believe that any person upon his premises is suffering from one of the diseases aforesaid shall immediately report the same to the Local Authority. Any medical officer (' of the local board for the district,' elsewhere defined as the Local Authority) or medical practitioner aware of a case of such disease shall also immediately make a similar report(Thompson, M.D.＆ D.P.H.,1897, p.117).

The bill also stipulates penalties for concealing cases such as fine. The fines imposed will vary by each state. In New South Wales, the fine is no more than 20 pounds, and in Western Australia is 50 pounds(Thompson, M.D.＆ D.P.H.,1897, p.117,162). In fact, the legislation on leprosy in various Australian states is very similar except for the time difference. After the legislation, all leprosy patients or persons suspected of leprosy must be isolated, and those who fail to notify the leprosy will also be severely punished.

Although the mandatory segregation policy is legally applicable, it should be implemented equally for everyone in Australia, regardless of their race. However, in the actual implementation process, they are still treated differently based on race. Chinese leprosy patients are placed on remote islands far away from people’s sight. They only need to meet the minimum conditions that can provide life support. At the leprosy isolation station, the medical staff did not provide the patients with appropriate treatment, and the patients were required to build their own shelters, and they even lacked necessary basic daily necessities and food. These behaviors reflect their ignorance of Chinese lepers In their view, Chinese leprosy patients do not need what humans need-food, shelter, and care.

On the other hand, white people get more tolerance and preferential treatment. In Queensland, four months after the leprosy act was passed, a 23-year-old white man, James Quigley, was examined by four doctors and found to have leprosy. The government's initial response was to send Quigley to the Torres Strait, Daman Island, as required by legislation. But three days later, Quigley was afraid of being sent to Damien Island to stay with Chinese lepers, so he ran away with his father. He was later confined to a Brisbane hospital by police, where he was kept in a tent under police guard until authorities decided what to do with him. A special meeting of the Central Board of Health specifically attempted to address this problem. At the meeting, the Colonial Secretary declared that：

“it would be little short of murder to send the unfortunate young man to Damien Island, and it was never contemplated sending him amongst Chinese lepers. That would be a great outrage on public feeling” (as cited in Robertson, p.166).

Colony officials in Queensland agreed that sending this unfortunate young man there would be nothing less than murder.

Apart from the quarantine policy, repatriation is another way. Chinese leper was isolated on Mud Island until repatriation could be facilitated. Repatriation was then a general solution to various problems concerning Chinese in the Territory. The repatriation of Chinese lepers continued until the turn of the 19th century and the 20th century. Because the transportation costs of repatriating Chinese was expensive and it was difficult to obtain financial support. Many shipping companies simply refused to ship lepers or required additional fee (Saunders,1989, p.21).

Leprosy can rot, numb, and ulcerate the whole body. The Chinese leper, like the effects of leprosy on the human body, corroded the construction of a purely white nation. The unique metaphor of leprosy, coupled with Australia’s inherent stereotypes and unilateral impressions of the Chinese, as well as concerns about racial degradation, turned Australia's fear of leprosy infection into fear of Chinese invasion. In order to stop the Chinese invasion, Australia enacted the Immigration Restriction Act in 1901. The bill regulates the conditions of immigration:

(a)Any person who when asked to do so by an officer fails to write out at dictation and sign in the presence of the officer a passage of fifty words in length in an European language directed by the officer;

(d) any person suffering from an infectious or contagious disease of a loathsome or dangerous character；

At that time, only a few Chinese could pass the dictation test to enter Australia. After the law came into effect, the number of Chinese coming to Australia dropped sharply. In 1901, the total number of Chinese in Australia was 29,627. In 1911 and 1921, it was reduced to 22,753 and 17,157 respectively. In 1933, it was reduced to 10,846, and in 1947, it reached the lowest number in history of 9,144. Within 50 years, the number has decreased by approximately 70%(Zhang,1998, p.138).

As can be seen from the data in Table 1 above, after 1900, the number of Chinese cases of leprosy decreased rapidly, while the number of indigenous cases of leprosy increased greatly. Various government policies restricting leprosy and the Chinese have legitimized public opinion and further deepened the already widespread fear of the Chinese. At the same time, the health of the Australian nation and the purity of the country have become racist ideals, and racial politics has been institutionalized and legalized. The isolation policy ostensibly protects Australia from this public health risk, but in reality, it shifts responsibility to Chinese groups. They blaming the Chinese for contaminated this pure land and were successfully excluded from the country through public health measures. By the 20th century, the indigenous population had become the main group of lepers. Chinese leper was no longer the focus of attention. Anxiety about leprosy in Australia shifted to the aborigines, while racialized measures to control leprosy continued to be carried out.

CONCLUSIONS

The history of the epidemiology of leprosy was a significant factor in determining the course pursued in leprosy prophylaxis in Australia. By the beginning of the twentieth century， the majority of European countries had been free of leprosy for at least a hundred years and in the colonial experience leprosy came to be viewed as a disease of the coloured races. This experience was confirmed in Australia when leprosy was first found among the Chinese. Tracing the origin of leprosy in Australia, the discovery of leprosy cases coincided with a massive influx of Chinese workers into Australia, and the first cases in most areas were usually Chinese. This discovery led to the belief that leprosy in Australia was introduced by the Chinese. Although there is no data that to prove the exact timing and origin of leprosy in Australia, the false claim that “Chinese are the origin of leprosy” is still believed. In the context of Australia, Chinese people and leprosy have rich metaphors. Racists use the idea that leprosy is a disease of inferior races to inflame public panic about leprosy and achieve the goal of repelling the Chinese. In the late 19th century, during the period of intense race-based nationalism in Australia, compulsory segregation measures to certain races were adopted. In Australia, racial health, national health and the constitution of white citizen groups are closely linked through exclusion. “White” was not only a kind of ethnic identity in this period, it also symbolized purity, hygiene and cleanliness. At that time, the pursuit of “whiteness” was a matter of public health, and immigration management was a means to achieve national purity. Quarantine measures are like a mental fence and a fortress to prevent the entry of leprosy bacteria. For those white people, they are engaged in a campaign against uncleanness. Through these means, Australia's population has been shaped and the purity of the country has been superficially protected.

By the beginning of the 20th century, aboriginal people had become a severely disadvantaged group in Australian society. By the 1920s, leprosy spread rapidly among indigenous communities. Although the subject has changed, the racialized metaphor of leprosy has not changed. And racial discrimination against colored race has made Australia adhere to an extremely rigid segregation policy. Even if other countries in the world have begun to adopt modern leprosy treatment methods, Australia still refuses to give up. Because what needs to be abandoned is not only the traditional isolation method, but also the prejudice and hostile attitude towards people of color. Moreover, this extremely rigid isolation policy has been implemented in Australia for a century, and it has been implemented for nearly 50 years even after other countries abandon the isolation policy.

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• [24] The Yellow Agony in Australia. (August 2, 1879), the Pilot. Vol.42, NO.31. https://newspapers.bc.edu/?a=d&d=pilot18790802-01.2.36