Leprosy
Leprosy
Imagine big white and red spots that cover every part of your body so that they can’t be hidden. On the inside you have a painful sinus infection. After a while, you have a loss of peripheral nerve sensation, so bad that your hands and feet go numb. You could go blind or you could lose your nose, ears, or even legs to amputation. Leprosy, also called Hansen's Disease, has been tantalizing humans for many years. Throughout history leprosy sufferers have been cast off from society, some believing that this infection was a punishment from God. Leprosy have been around for millions of years, beginning with Ancient Greek and Egyptian civilization. Gordon Grice, author of “Where Leprosy Lurks”, an article in the November 2000 issue of Discover Magazine, believed that the oldest evidence of Leprosy dated back to the skulls of four Egyptians that were discovered in second century B.C. (Grice). The faces of these skulls Grice talks about in the article had already been eroded before the person had died. There has also been documents from about 600 B.C. (Grice) that described the symptoms of leprosy in detail. Leprosy is caused by Mycobacterium leprae, a bacterium discovered by Dr. Gerhard Armauer Hansen, a Norwegian scientist, in 1873 (Schoenstadt). This bacterium is rod-shaped, and mainly affects the skin and mucous membranes although it may also affect certain other tissues, such as the eye, the mucosa of the upper respiratory tract, muscle, bone, and testes. Leprosy has two common forms which are tuberculoid and lepromatous. Both of these forms causes sores on the skin but the worst form is lepromatous, which causes large bumps called
nodules (Leprosy). Because leprosy has a long incubation period it makes it hard to trace back where it was transmitted from. Some scientists believe that it is transmitted through nasal droplets, though some people who develop leprosy have no confirmed connection with another infected person (Schoenstadt).
Imagine big white and red spots that cover every part of your body so that they can’t be hidden. On the inside you have a painful sinus infection. After a while, you have a loss of peripheral nerve sensation, so bad that your hands and feet go numb. You could go blind or you could lose your nose, ears, or even legs to amputation. Leprosy, also called Hansen's Disease, has been tantalizing humans for many years. Throughout history leprosy sufferers have been cast off from society, some believing that this infection was a punishment from God. Leprosy have been around for millions of years, beginning with Ancient Greek and Egyptian civilization. Gordon Grice, author of “Where Leprosy Lurks”, an article in the November 2000 issue of Discover Magazine, believed that the oldest evidence of Leprosy dated back to the skulls of four Egyptians that were discovered in second century B.C. (Grice). The faces of these skulls Grice talks about in the article had already been eroded before the person had died. There has also been documents from about 600 B.C. (Grice) that described the symptoms of leprosy in detail. Leprosy is caused by Mycobacterium leprae, a bacterium discovered by Dr. Gerhard Armauer Hansen, a Norwegian scientist, in 1873 (Schoenstadt). This bacterium is rod-shaped, and mainly affects the skin and mucous membranes although it may also affect certain other tissues, such as the eye, the mucosa of the upper respiratory tract, muscle, bone, and testes. Leprosy has two common forms which are tuberculoid and lepromatous. Both of these forms causes sores on the skin but the worst form is lepromatous, which causes large bumps called
nodules (Leprosy). Because leprosy has a long incubation period it makes it hard to trace back where it was transmitted from. Some scientists believe that it is transmitted through nasal droplets, though some people who develop leprosy have no confirmed connection with another infected person (Schoenstadt).