leprosy, red squirrels and people in medieval England

Leprosy, a disabling disease for thousands of years, is transmitted primarily through prolonged contact between people. But not only. Along with wild chimpanzees and armadillos, red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) from the British Isles may also be speakers Mycobacterium leprosy, leprosy bacillus. This is what scientists discovered in 2016.

Other researchers have just shown “After analyzing squirrel bones dating back to medieval England, these small hairy creatures were found to harbor a strain of bacteria that causes leprosy, very similar to the one that circulated among the population several centuries ago,” reports The science in a public article. Evidence that the disease “reportedly walked back and forth between humans and squirrels”. Explanations.

Bones

It is no exaggeration to say that medieval England loved red squirrels. This love could take many different forms, since “People kept arboreal rodents as pets and used their fur for clothing,” explains the scientific journal.

The team of Sarah Inskeep, an osteoarchaeologist at the University of Leicester in the UK, carried out their research in Winchester. “a medieval English town well known for its leper colony and connections to the fur trade” the authors explain in their article published in Current biology. The study included the bones of twenty-five humans and twelve squirrels from two archaeological sites in Winchester. After the bones were crushed, genetic material was extracted: human DNA and proteins, as well as leprosy bacilli. And this, according to The sciencefor the first time that “strain genome M. leprosy was reconstructed from the archaeological remains of a non-human animal”.

The most interesting part of this work was the comparison of squirrel bacilli strains and human strains. The medieval squirrel bacilli strain is actually genetically closer to the strain found at a site near a leper colony than to the bacilli that infect modern red squirrels. According to Sarah Inskeep, “againstThis indicates that in the Middle Ages in England, the proceedings spread between proteins and people, perhaps there was a “ping-pong” between them. reports The science.

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