KITLV Home

Leo van Bergen

Bergen

Leo van Bergen (Venlo, 1959) is a medical historian. Although he also wrote on university history, health insurance history and introduction of medical technology, he is specialized in the history of war and medicine and tropical medicine. On this last topic, more especially on the project ‘Leprosy and Empire’, he has received a three-year research grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).

This project, a cooperation between KITLV and the Huizinga-Institute of the Utrecht University, focuses on the cultural, medical and political dimensions of leprosy in Surinam and Dutch East-India (1800-1950). What are the differences and similarities between politics towards leprosy, the autochthonous and Dutch views on leprosy and the medical answer to this disease, and how did these dimensions interact and change through time. The interesting thing is that, although part of the same empire, as well politics as medical views on leprosy differed between Surinam and Dutch East-India.
 
Before becoming part of the KITLV Van Bergen was assistant-professor and researcher at the VU-university medical centre at Amsterdam, at the department of Metamedica (Medical Humanities) where he for instance organised a yearly course on Healthcare in Conflict- and Developmental Areas.
 
He is a board-member of the Dutch affiliate of the IPPNW (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) and a member of the advisory board of the PubMed indexed and peer-reviewed journal Medicine, Conflict and Survival.
 
For his work on medicine and war in 2009 he received the J.A. Verdoorn Award.
 

Selected Publications

For more information and a number of articles see: www.leovanbergen.nl.