Fun Facts About Leprosy

Not that leprosy is any kind of fun, in fact, it's exactly the opposite, but to keep up appearances for this journal, fun facts must be revealed. Learn away! :)

Did you know...

*Leprosy is a bacterial disease that can lead to nerve, skin, and skeletal damage. CAN, not always. However, these symptoms typically do not show up until after an incubation period lasting up to several years or even decades.

*Leprosy is actually quite difficult to spread among humans. Its infectivity is very low, despite the fact that it is contagious. Perhaps a part of this is because...

*95% of the world's population is naturally IMMUNE to the bacillus Mycobacterium leprae that causes leprosy. Whoa..who knew?!

*As of 1948, leprosy has been officially called Hansen's disease. This was for two reasons. One, leprosy has always incurred a stigma among people ever since it's arrival. In an effort to decrease that stigma, the disease was given a new name. Two, this new name came from the man, Gerhard H. A. Hansen, who in 1873, discovered how the disease is spread. He found out that it is a communicable (inhalation of airborne secretions) disease that is caused by a bacterial infection- M. leprae.

*Leprosy may date all the way back to around 1500 BC. A possible case of the disease is inscribed on an Egyptian papyrus. Since many historic accounts of the disease are actually inaccurate (the disease's symptoms were often confused with other maladies), it is possible that this case was also inaccurate. However if not, it would be the earliest case on record.

*An effective treatment for the disease was finally discovered in 1941. Unfortunately, it was an injection. Ouch! I hate needles with a passion! It wasn't until about 10 years later that a treatment administered orally became available.

*Leprosy can sometimes show up on the bones of its sufferers. The evidence can include concentric loss of bone on the phalanges of the hands and feet, a group of skull changes (mainly atrophies) known as the rhinomaxillary syndrome, degeneration of the leg joints, and plenty of other deformations. In the end, these changes caused severe disfigurations of the body.

*Males are twice as likely as females to be affected by the disease.

*Luckily for anyone who becomes a sufferer of leprosy, it is usually not fatal. Whew! Good to know. :)

~Knowledge is Power~

My learning experiences derive from:

Dobson, Mary. Disease: The Extraordinary Stories Behind

History's Deadliest Killers. London. Quercus. 2007.

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Waldron, Tony. Palaeopathology. Cambridge.

Cambridge University Press. 2009.

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Larsen, Clark Spencer. Bioarchaeology: Interpreting Behavior from the

Human Skeleton. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1997.