Bergen had one of the highest rates of leprosy in 19th-century Europe, and this unsettling museum is housed in the actual hospital where patients were confined. St George's Hospital was built in 1755 and continued receiving leprosy patients until 1946 — the last Norwegian patient admitted anywhere was in 1973. The preserved ward rooms, the chapel, and the small museum give a quiet but powerful account of what it meant to be diagnosed with a disease that was then incurable.
Gerhard Armauer Hansen, who identified the leprosy bacillus here in 1873, worked in this hospital. His discovery is commemorated in the museum's exhibition. It's one of the more unusual and affecting museums in any Scandinavian city.