Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Leprosy: Humanity's Oldest Disease

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

For thousands of years, one of the most terrifying and destructive diseases which afflicted humanity has been leprosy.  Leprosy is a condition that affects the nerves and skin, and in extreme cases, it can result in the loss of limbs and other appendages.  Those who were diagnosed with leprosy would often be consigned to a lifetime of social ostracism.  Learn more about leprosy, aka Hansens Disease, its past and its future, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/EverythingEverywhere Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For thousands of years, one of the most terrifying and destructive diseases which has afflicted humanity has been leprosy. Leparcy is a condition that affects the nerves and skin, and in extreme cases, it can result in the loss of appendages. Those who were diagnosed with leprosy would often be consigned to a lifetime of social ostracism. But thankfully, that's no longer the case. Learn more about leprosy, aka Hanson's disease, its past and its future, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed.

It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. Leprosy is considered by many to be the oldest communicable disease in human history. It's impossible to know what the first. disease actually was as it would have manifested before written history. It could have been something like tuberculosis, but we do have genetic evidence for leprosy, possibly dating back 10 million years, which might have affected early hominid ancestors. Genetic analysis shows that leprosy probably

originated somewhere in East Africa or the Middle East. Leprosy is caused by a bacteria known as miso-bacterium lepray. It's almost exclusively spread through human-to-human contact. Lepercy spread as humans began to migrate and trade with other civilizations. As humans left Africa, they took the leprosy bacteria with them and spread it as they slowly traveled across the globe. If people know anything about leprosy, it's the horrific symptoms that manifest in those that suffer from it. Leprosy affects the skin and the nervous system outside of the brain and spinal cord. The bacteria can have an incubation period that lasts anywhere from a few months, up to 20 years. Early symptoms usually consist of a skin rash for which the sufferer has no feeling.

As the disease spreads, it can result in the inability to feel pain, which can result in unintended injuries. And it can also result in the absorption of cartilage into the tissue, particularly in the nose. As the disease spreads, it can result in severe skin disfiguration, hair loss, and even blindness. Many of the most extreme symptoms, such as the loss of fingers and toes, often do not result from leprosy directly, but rather from secondary infections which develop, or from the development of gangrene, which may require amputation. Because of the disfiguring symptoms of leprosy, the social response to the disease has always been harsh and severe.

The historical accounts of leprosy date back about 2,500 years. There are several mentions of leprosy in the Old Testament. The Book of Numbers, Chapter 5 verse 2 says, quote, command the sons of Israel that they may send away from the camp every leper and everyone having a discharge and everyone who is unclean because of a dead person. End quote. The book of Deuteronomy chapter 24 verse 8 says, quote, Be careful against an infection of leprosy that you diligently observe and do according to that

all the Levitical priests teach you. As I have commanded them, so shall you be careful to do. End quote. The Hebrew holy texts are far from the only ancient mentions of leprosy. In the New Testament, Jesus was said to have cured a leper, and that story is repeated in the Quran. The Indian Vedas mentioned leprosy and prescribed the oil from the Chalmugra tree as a cure. The great historical Sri Lankan text, the Mahavamsa, notes that the ancestors of the Buddha suffered from leprosy and had to go live in the woods. The Chinese book, Feng Zhen Shi, written 2200 years ago, outlines the symptoms of leprosy, including the destruction of the nasal septum.

The Roman historian Herodotus spoke of the Persian practice of shunning lepers. Greek and Roman doctors believe that the disease was transferred to the disease. the troops of Alexander the Great, who brought it back with them from Persia and India. The Greeks and Romans called the disease Elephant Titus. In Egypt, the disease was believed to have come up the Nile from Nubia and it afflicted several pharaohs. Basically, every ancient culture, at least in the old world, had leprosy as a disease in their population. Their reaction to leprosy was the same in most cultures. The disease had a severe negative social stigma. Lepers were usually shunned and forced to live apart

from the rest of society to prevent transmission of the disease. In India, lepers were considered untouchable outcasts. In the Middle Ages in Europe, lepers would often have to wear bells to let people know that they were nearby. The ostracization of lepers from society eventually began to be more formalized. One of the first things to be established were leper houses. Lepper houses were run by monastic orders and they were documented in the 5th, 6th, and 7th centuries. By the start of the Crusades in the 11th century, there were over 700 leper houses in Belgium alone. During the Crusades, the Order of St. Lazarus, the patron saint of lepers, was established to care for lepers in the Holy Land and throughout Europe.

One of the most notable cases of leprosy was that of King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, who was king of one of the crusader states. He had leprosy, and his story in part was told in the 2005 Ridley Scott film, Kingdom of Heaven. And, FYI, it's a really good movie, but make sure you watch the director's cut because they butchered the theatrical release. Eventually, the separation of peoples with leprosy was taken beyond separate houses to the establishment of entire separate communities, or, as they became known, leper colonies. The first leper colonies is believed to have been created in Harbledown, England, in 1085. Eventually, leper colonies were established in most countries. They were usually established

far away from population centers, and they solved the problem of what to do with people who suffered from the disease. Colonies allowed people with leprosy to live somewhat normal lives without dealing with the stigma of having the disease from the general population, and it also provided a way to limit the transmission of the disease. One major problem was that people who had skin conditions like psoriasis were often misdiagnosed with leprosy and sent to these colonies, where they would later actually come down with leprosy. Leprosy did not exist in the new world until the arrival of Europeans, who brought the disease with them, along with many other diseases. In the 19th century, the United States established

several colonies for the entire country. One was Penekees Island in Massachusetts, and another was the Carvel National Leprosarium in Louisiana. However, the best-known and largest leper colony was established in the north shore of the island of Molokai in Hawaii in 1866. Calopapa. Calapapa was extremely isolated and hard to reach. For starters, the Hawaiian islands were just very hard to reach in the 19th century. And second, Molokai is one of the lesser populated islands and still is today. And finally, even if you could make it to Molokai, Kalupapa was located on the north shore on a peninsula, surrounded by some of the largest sea cliffs in the world. The only way there was via donkey on a very treacherous winding trail. The colony was actually established by King

Kamea Maya V before Hawaii was part of the United States. At its peak, the colony had 1,200 people living there, while the colony offered a reasonable life for its people, in some ways it was also a prison. The people who were sent there were guaranteed a home and a place to live for the rest of their life, but they could also never leave. Even when their family members visited, they could only talk to them through a fence. The settlement became associated with Father Damian, a Belgian priest who went to live there in 1873 and eventually succumbed to the disease himself in 1889. He was canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church in 2009. Believe it or not, Calupapa still exists today, although there are only a handful of elderly people who still live there. The current residents were brought there as

children and promised a home for life, and now they have no desire to leave, even though leprosy is no longer a problem. It also happens to be its own county in Hawaii, Kalawhal County. It's the smallest county in the United States by area, and with only 82 people, the second smallest by population. The thing which forever changed leprosy and the diagnosis for those who suffered from it occurred in 1873. The Norwegian doctor Aramauer Hansen identified the bacteria which caused leprosy. The disease was subsequently officially renamed Hansen's disease in his honor. It was the first time in history that a bacteria was identified as the cause of a disease. This wasn't just a breakthrough in the treatment of leprosy. If you remember back to my previous episodes about

Ignace, Semmelweis, and John Snow, prior to the germ theory of disease, nobody was really sure what caused illnesses. Having identified, a particular bacteria which caused a particular disease was groundbreaking and opened the door to a better understanding of disease in general. The next big breakthrough was in 1940, with the development of an antibacterial medication that could be used to treat leprosy. The drug which was developed was promen. Other antibiotics were developed which were used in the treatment of leprosy. Dapsone was introduced in the 1950s with cloflasamine and rifampin in the 1960s and 70s. An Indian researcher by the name of Chantaramya Walker developed a three-drug treatment

in the 1970s, which is still largely used today. The result of these antibiotic treatments has been the gradual disappearance of leprosy. Despite being one of the oldest diseases in human history, it turned out that leprosy was rather easy to cure as diseases go. For starters, we learn that 95% of the population has a natural immunity to leprosy, which is why there was never leprosy epidemic. in history. Also, the bacteria can't survive for more than an hour outside of its host. Today, there are about 200,000 people in the world who have leprosy, and about half of them are in the nation of India. Everyone who suffers from the disease has given a free treatment by the World Health Organization and is able to keep the disease under control. A full treatment can

usually be completed in about one to two years. As leprosy is transmitted from person to person, there has for several decades been a goal to completely eradicate the disease, just as we did with smallpox. In 1991, a goal was said to eradicate the disease by the year 2000, but it wasn't achieved. In fact, leprosy rates have remained low but stable ever since then. One of the things which will help the long-term eradication of the disease will be the increase of living standards in India, which is the country with the highest number of cases. It was the increase of living standards, not the introduction of antibiotics, which actually saw the biggest reduction in cases in Europe. I should end by noting that while the transmission of

the disease is almost exclusively from human to human, it turns out that there is another animal that can carry the disease, armadillos. At some point, since Europeans brought leprosy to the new world, the disease spread to armadillos. And this is actually a concern that armadillos in the American Southwest might prevent the eradication of lepros, unless we can also eradicate it in armadillos as well. Leprosy has plagued humanity for thousands of years. But thanks to advances in antibiotics, it's finally become a disease that can be managed and even cured. Hopefully, sometime in the not too distant future, this ancient disease will be regulated to the dustbin of history. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers

are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. Today's review comes from listener, The Barely Below Average podcast from Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write, my favorite. I was recommended this podcast by a family friend one day. I decided to give it a try and loved it instantly. I'm currently starting from episode one and working my way to the present. Sitting around 250 episodes in, I can confidently say it's my favorite podcast I have found thus far. As a native Yupor and current Brown County resident, the connection was made instantly.

Thanks, Gary, keep him coming. Well, thanks, the barely below average. I appreciate your comments. However, I think I might have to translate your review for ever, everybody else. A Uper is someone who hails from the U.P. And the U.P. stands for Upper Peninsula, which is the northernmost of the two peninsulas in the state of Michigan. The U.P. isn't actually connected to the rest of Michigan, but it is connected to Wisconsin and by all rights should be part of the state. But it isn't. The region is known for its Cornish pasties

and extreme amounts of snow. Brown County refers to the location of the city of Green Bay, the home of the 13-time NFL champion Green Bay Packers, who this last season pulled ahead of the Chicago Bears to be the all-time NFL leader in franchise wins. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostogram, you too can have it read on the show.