Ancient DNA Reveals People Caught Leprosy From Adorable Woodland Critters in Medieval England
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Ancient DNA Reveals People Caught Leprosy From Adorable Woodland Critters In Medieval England:
Red squirrels - yes, the cute ones with furry ears from children's books - have become the first identified animal host of one of the oldest diseases in recorded history. It seems these unassuming critters were responsible for spreading leprosy to people in medieval England.
The red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) is now a rare sight in the UK, having been largely replaced by their gray cousins, but that wasn't the case in the Middle Ages. Back then, humans and squirrels rubbed shoulders fairly often - not the best news for the squirrels, mind you, which were prized for their fur and sometimes captured and kept as pets.
In their own way, though, it seems they fought back, as a new genetic analysis of ancient human and squirrel remains has provided the best proof yet of a theory that squirrels spread leprosy-causing bacteria to medieval humans.
"With our genetic analysis we were able to identify red squirrels as the first ancient animal host of leprosy," said senior study author Verena Schuenemann, a professor at the University of Basel, in a statement.
Leprosy is caused by strains of bacteria from the species Mycobacterium leprae. Accounts of the disease, which primarily affects the skin and peripheral nervous system, appear in ancient writings across various civilizations, but you may be surprised to learn that the World Health Organization still records over 200,000 new cases every year.
Nowadays, leprosy is treatable with a long course of three antibiotics, but if people are unable to access this treatment the condition can progress to cause permanent disability. And it's not just the physical effects - leprosy patients have always endured stigma and discrimination, and this continues even though we now understand that it's much less contagious than our forebears believed.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.