On 3rd Nov. 1879 Norwegian physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen was determined to prove that the bacteria which he had visualised, Mycobacterium Leprae, is the root cause of leprosy (also known since his experiments as Hansen’s disease). He decided to call a young woman named Kari Nielsdatter Spidsøen into his office and inoculated the bacteria into the cornea of her eye without her consent, infecting her and proving his theory. The symptoms of leprosy affect the patient’s skin, nerves, eyes, and the lining of the nose which can lead to the characteristic ‘Lion’s face’, due to extra growth of the bones of the face, particularly the upper jaw which narrows the nasal opening. In Hansen’s times leprosy was still feared as a highly contagious and devastating disease with associated social stigma, which highlights the despicable nature of his decision to infect an unaware test subject in order to prove his hypothesis. Patients typically suffered this ailment for their entire lifetime, even though today we are aware that leprosy does not spread so easily, and modern treatments are effective. The painting depicts a woman suffering leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, with the ‘Lion’s face’ syndrome that the disease can cause, as well as the zoomorphic body of a lion. On the left side of the canvas the hand of Gerhard Armaeur Hansen appears to inspect his test subject, while the background of the painting is a colourful landscape reminiscent of diagrammatic presentations of human skin and flowers in scientific textbooks.