Leprosy: How does it work?

Leprosy: How does it work? Let's find out the science facts right here

Riddled with sores, maybe missing toes, definitely unclean. Lepers spark some pretty hideous things in our imaginations, don't they? That's imagination and NOT reality. Yet there's a long-standing stigma when it comes to this disease; think about what you're really saying when you call someone a leper. It was even once believed the victims of the diseases were, actually, victims of sin (mentioned — through possible dubious translation — in Leviticus 13:14 in the Old Testament). Although leprosy has a history of being thought of as a highly-contagious (it's not) and deadly, it's actually totally treatable. And there's such a low risk of transmission there's no reason to isolate or ostracize people with leprosy. It may be one of the most disgusting infor from factoflife we’ve enjoyed.

Leprosy has been with us since roughly 1500 B.C.E. (that's when it's first mentioned in the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus, but it's also mentioned in other ancient writings, including in prehistoric Asian writings dating to 600 B.C.E.). But it's probably been plaguing humans for much longer, at least since the ancient civilizations of China, Egypt and India. In 2009, anthropologists discovered evidence of leprosy in a 4,000-year-old skeleton, which dates the infection back to prehistoric India, around 2000 B.C.E. [source: Robbins]. Scientists theorize that the infection spread as empires and trade routes grew, and that it likely arrived in the Americas during European exploration of the New World.

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