Posted on 05/23/2011 9:09:42 AM PDT by decimon
Mummies from along the Nile are revealing how age-old irrigation techniques may have boosted the plague of schistosomiasis, a water-borne parasitic disease that infects an estimated 200 million people today.
An analysis of the mummies from Nubia, a former kingdom that was located in present-day Sudan, provides details for the first time about the prevalence of the disease across populations in ancient times, and how human alteration of the environment during that era may have contributed to its spread.
The American Journal of Physical Anthropology is publishing the study, led by Emory graduate student Amber Campbell Hibbs, who recently received her PhD in anthropology.
About 25 percent of mummies in the study dated to about 1,500 years ago were found to have Schistosoma mansoni, a species of schistosomiasis associated with more modern-day irrigation techniques.
Often in the case of prehistoric populations, we tend to assume that they were at the mercy of the environment, and that their circumstances were a given, says Campbell Hibbs. Our study suggests that, just like people today, these ancient individuals were capable of altering the environment in ways that impacted their health.
(Excerpt) Read more at esciencecommons.blogspot.com ...
Too smarted by half ping.
1) Prehistoric times were 1500 years ago.
2) Irrigation methods were used 1500 years ago. Who knew??
3) People in Egypt built things and altered their environment. Whoa! Stop the presses!
4) Don’t let the snail water touch your skin.
“Schistosomiasis is readily treated using a single oral dose of the drug praziquantel annually.[11] As with other major parasitic diseases, there is ongoing and extensive research into developing a schistosomiasis vaccine that will prevent the parasite from completing its life cycle in humans.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schistosomiasis
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He’s dead, Jim...
5) Nubians were self treating by consuming large quantities of bee contating Tetracycline.!?!
I don't know, he could have some fight left in him.
That’s suppose to say BEER containing Tetracycline.
Is this another slam on agriculturists by the wild river crowd who oppose irrigation?
I’m remembering a MASH episode where they were trying to pull the wool over Hot Lips by justifying a quarantine of a tent because the inhabitant supposedly had schistosomiasis. I think it was Potter who figured the ruse out.
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