The eminent German histomorphologist, Paul Gerson Unna, MD (1850-1929) was the first modern scientist to claim that leprosy was curable (in 1887). Unna held that leprosy involved the lymphatics, which he thought contained the bacilli, and not cells. In 1882 he founded the journal Monatschefte für Praktische Dermatologie (still running, under the title of Zeitschrift für Dermatologie) and was director of the Department of Dermatology at the University of Hamburg from 1919.
International Journal of Leprosy, Centennial Festskrift edition, Vol 41, No 2. 1973 (updated using other sources).