Large-scale DNA study maps 37,000 years of human disease history

cam.ac.uk

36 pointsXzetaU84 comments

Leprosy was described in the Bible so a specimen from 1,400 years ago seems less than impressive

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_leprosy

From your link:

> Famously, the "leprosy" of most translations of the Bible as far back as the Septuagint represents a multilayered historical process of confusion. The state of ritual impurity known to the Hebrews as tzara'ath (צָרַעַת, "struck")[9] seems to have been a conflation of various skin disorders, owing to the undeveloped state of medical science at that period.

Difficult to be certain that "leprosy" in the Bible is the same one we're talking about today.

yes I read that, but the whole paper says that leprosy as we name it now, originated directly around that geographic area and was spread directly from there..

Yes, a lot of things were conflated with lepra until fairly recently. Or maybe it's more fair to the doctors of the past to say that leprosy was more of a symptom to them, like a fever or anemia, which could have many different underlying causes. A lot of bacterial skin diseases, fortunately no longer an issue today, can cause symptoms similar to lepra.

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