The Gradual Constitution of DDS as a Cure for Hansen’s Disease

• In Event: Leprosy (癩) in East Asia: Culture, Memory, Writing and Practice in the Era of Global Health

Abstract

This paper focuses on Diamino-diphenyl sulphone (DDS), a drug for treating Hansen’s disease (HD) and explores the social meaning of this chemical compound by examining its several metamorphoses from its synthesis. I argue that the effects of a medical object originate not just from the substance, but also from social construction. In 1937, when DDS was tested for the first time as an antibiotic, it was concluded that DDS was too toxic to be used as a drug. In 1948, after the medical communities in the United States found that Promin might be effective against laboratory tuberculosis, Doctor John Lowe working at the Leprosy Research Unit of Nigerian Leprosy Service decided to take the risk of trying DDS on his patients. He found that a very small amount of DDS was enough to create a blood level under which there was therapeutic effects and only limited toxicity. In the early 1950s, DDS started to be used in Taiwan. It was easy to use, inexpensive, and good for use for big amounts of patients, and thus was suitable to be used in tandem with standardized Slit Skin Smears, an outreach team, and local technics. Integrating existing local technologies and actors, DDS became an effective drug. This paper contributes to recent discussions of technological objects in the Social Studies of Science literature by specifying how the effects of a drug are constructed not in the laboratory, but in the scenes where doctors and patients are trying to manage a disease.

Author

• Yiling Hung, Academia Sinica