The Leonard Wood Memorial for the Eradication of Leprosy, to the title of which "American Leprosy Foundation" was subsequently added, was set up with the expressed intention of leaving "no scientific step untaken that holds any promise of finding the ultimate solution to this age-old curse of the human race."

It had its origin in the early 1920s in the desire of Major General Leonard Wood, Governor-General of the Philippines, and himself a physician, to improve the treatment of leprosy patients in the Islands, and the wish of Dr H W Wade, Professor of Pathology and Bacteriology in the College of Medicine and Surgery of the University of the Philippines in Manila, to coordinate the treatment of many leprosy patients in the Islands with a program of training and research. In this Wade hoped to take advantage of the broad opportunity at hand for improvement both in understanding the natural history of the disease, and its procedures for its therapy.