Origins of Leprosy

"The oldest known skeleton showing signs of leprosy has been found in India and may help solve the puzzle of where the disease originated. The skeleton, about 4,000 years old, was found at the site of Balathal, near Udaipur in northwestern India. Historians have long considered the Indian subcontinent to be the source of the leprosy that was first reported in Europe in the fourth century B.C., shortly after the armies of Alexander the Great returned from India." From the NY Times, May 27, 2009

Traditionally, leprologists are dermatologists. The disorder is endlessly challenging and is of great intellectual interest. These new findings are of import to historians and students of medicine.

You can Read the NY Times article Here
and/or the PLoS One report Here
PLoS Abstract: Results indicate that lepromatous leprosy was present in India by 2000 B.C. This evidence represents the oldest documented skeletal evidence for the disease. Our results indicate that Vedic burial traditions in cases of leprosy were present in northwest India prior to the first millennium B.C. Our results also support translations of early Vedic scriptures as the first textual reference to leprosy. The presence of leprosy in skeletal material dated to the post-urban phase of the Indus Age suggests that if M. leprae evolved in Africa, the disease migrated to India before the Late Holocene, possibly during the third millennium B.C. at a time when there was substantial interaction among the Indus Civilization, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. This evidence should be impetus to look for additional skeletal and molecular evidence of leprosy in India and Africa to confirm the African origin of the disease.

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The mandible pictured above demonstrates root exposure, alveolar resorption, antemortem tooth loss, and a small apical abscess at the left third premolar. Image is from PLoS One article.