Tuberculosis in Early Civilization
In 2008, evidence for tuberculosis infection has been discovered in human remains from the Neolithic era dating from 9,000 years ago, in a settlement in the eastern Mediterranean. This finding was confirmed by morphological and molecular methods; to date it is the oldest evidence of tuberculosis infection in humans.
Evidence of the infection in humans was also found in a cemetery near Heidelberg, in the Neolithic bone remains that show evidence of the type of angulation often seen with spinal tuberculosis. Some authors call tuberculosis the first disease known to mankind.
Signs of the disease have also been found in Egyptian mummies dated between 3000 and 2400 BC.
The most convincing case was found in the mummy of priest Nesperehen, discovered by Grebart in 1881, which featured evidence of spinal tuberculosis with the characteristic psoas abscesses. Similar features were discovered on other mummies like that of the priest Philoc and throughout the cemeteries of Thebes.
It appears likely that Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti both died from tuberculosis, and evidence indicates that hospitals for tuberculosis existed in Egypt as early as 1500 BC.
The Ebers papyrus, an important Egyptian medical treatise from around 1550 BC, describes a pulmonary consumption associated with the cervical lymph nodes. It recommended that it be treated with the surgical lancing of the cyst and the application of a ground mixture of acacia seyal, peas, fruits, animal blood, insect blood, honey and salt.
The Old Testament mentions a consumptive illness that would affect the Jewish people if they stray from God. It is listed in the section of curses given before they enter the land of Palestine.
Read more about this topic: History Of Tuberculosis
Famous quotes containing the words tuberculosis, early and/or civilization:
“With sighs more lunar than bronchial,
Howbeit eluding fallopian diagnosis,
She simpers into the tribal library and reads
That Keats died of tuberculosis . . .”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Democracy and Republicanism in their best partisan utterances alike declare for human rights. Jefferson, the father of Democracy, Lincoln, the embodiment of Republicanism, and the Divine author of the religion on which true civilization rests, all proclaim the equal rights of all men.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)