Among all the infamous ancient diseases cropping up in human history, leprosy is perhaps second only to the plague. The chronic infection ravaged the bodies of its victims, causing skin lesions and loss of limbs much like House of the Dragon’s Viserys Targaryen who actor Paddy Considine revealed had a severe form of leprosy, which wasn’t explicitly stated in the show. But unlike in fiction, infected individuals in our real world were often ostracized by society and forced to quarantine for life in leper colonies. The last such colony was dismantled as late as 1969.
