Paul Wilson Brand

World renowned hand surgeon and leprosy specialist

In 1946, when Paul Brand was only a few years out of medical school in London, he received an invitation that was to set him on the path to world renown as a hand surgeon and leprosy specialist. Robert Cochrane, who was then the world's foremost leprologist, asked Brand and his wife, Margaret, also a doctor, to join him at the Christian Medical College, in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, southernIndia. Cochrane challenged Brand to use his skills as an orthopaedic surgeon to explore why peoplewith leprosy developed deformed hands—and to see if he could find an effective treatment.

Brand spent years researching the cause and effect of the neuropathic limb and discovered that …