First reconstruction of leprotic bacterial genome from ancient animal remains sheds new light on its ecology
Leprosy, a disease that can cause nerve damage, lesions, and the loss of smell and eyesight, has afflicted people for millennia—and we’re not alone. It’s also plagued squirrels since at least the Middle Ages, according to a new study. After analyzing squirrel bones dating to medieval England, researchers found that the furry critters carried a strain of a leprosy-causing bacterium strikingly similar to the one many Brits harbored centuries ago.
Medieval squirrels, the team reasoned, might have answers. Middle Ages England was squirrel crazy: People kept the arboreal rodents as pets and used their furs to line and trim clothing. Inskip and her colleagues zeroed in on the medieval city of Winchester, which had not only skinners, tailors, and furriers, but also a hospital for leprosy patients. “It was a really smart way of more cases,” Spyrou says.
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