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The bones of a soldier with leprosy who may have died in battle have been found in a medieval Italian cemetery, along with skeletons of men who survived blows to the head with battle-axes and maces. Studying ancient leprosy, which is caused by a bacterial infection, may help scientists figure out how the infectious disease evolved. The find also reveals the warlike ways of the semi-nomadic people who lived in the area between the sixth and eighth centuries, said study researcher Mauro Rubini, an anthropologist at Foggia University in Italy. The war wounds, which showed evidence of surgical intervention, provide...

Various places on the Internet falsely attribute a cure for leprosy with Mother Eugenia Elisabetta Ravasio. This is a cure based on (apparently) Chaulmoogra Oil. The following web articles claimed she found the cure for Leprosy. This is incorrect. Eugenia Elisabetta Ravasio (Wikipedia)Mother Eugenia Elisabetta Ravasio (The Work of God)Mother Eugenia Elisabetta Ravasio (World Lingo) PDF -- http://www.fatherspeaks.net/pdf/the_father_speaks_english_v-2005-02.pdf -- Mother Eugenia Elisabetta Ravasio (The Father Speaks) This is a just a few of the many links that spread this misinformation about Mother Ravasio as being the first person to find a medicine to cure to leprosy. These web references all...

...While heirloom vegetables are actually benign–and frequently very tasty–it seems to me that we are currently witnessing an alarming wave of another type of heirloom: diseases. I started thinking about it when I read this post from Gateway Pundit earlier today, about an outbreak of typhoid (yes typhoid) in California and Nevada. Typhoid, once the scourge of many major cities, was nearly eradicated by the advent of clean water technologies in the early part of the twentieth century. Yet typhoid is back, and it’s not the only heirloom disease we’re seeing in America of late. We’ve probably all seen the...

Legal immigrants are required to have medical screening to ensure that they do not bring any contagious diseases into the United States. Illegal aliens are not screened and many are carrying horrific third world diseases that do not belong in the USA. Many of these diseases are highly contagious and will infect citizens that come in contact with an infected illegal alien. This has already happened in restaurants, schools, and police forces. Malaria was eradicated from the USA in the 1940s but recently there were outbreaks in southern California, New Jersey, New York City, and Houston. Additionally, Malaria tainted blood...

VANCOUVER -- Health officials confirmed Friday a crew member has a case of leprosy aboard a cruise ship anchored in the city's harbour that houses police and Canadian Forces personnel providing security for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, is curable and is not considered highly contagious, said provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall. He said the young crew member worked in the engine room and did not have contact with police or military. The crew member, who is not a Canadian citizen, was diagnosed Thursday and has received treatment, he said. "I think he's gone...

In one of the world's worst slums, Cite Soleil, a school named after the daughter of Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine aspires to nourish and educate (Snip) PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti | Tucked into the western edge of this capital city is a slum so wretched and so dangerous it is strictly off-limits to U.S. government personnel. More from this series Valley missionaries continue to return to Haiti Aid workers find themselves preparing children for a future that may never come Haitians have learned to put their trust in the hands of the Lord The name, ironically, means "City of the Sun." "Nobody...

The spread of tuberculosis may have killed off leprosy in Europe in the Middle Ages, according to research published in the latest issue of the Royal Society Proceedings B. A collaborative study led by University College London (UCL) scientists, following the discovery of a shrouded body in a sealed chamber overlooked by tomb robbers, found evidence of both diseases in a range of archaeological remains dating from the 1st to the 15th centuries. An initial examination of the body, currently under analysis in Israel, revealed signs of co-infection of TB and leprosy in the bone tissue. The collaborative team, led...

Burial Cloth Found In Jerusalem Cave Casts Doubt On Authenticity of Turin Shroud By MATTHEW KALMAN 16th December 2009 Archaeologists have discovered the first known burial shroud in Jerusalem from the time of Christ's crucifixion - and say it casts serious doubt on the claimed authenticity of the Turin Shroud. Ancient shrouds from the period have been found before in the Holy Land, but never in Jerusalem. Researchers say the weave and design of the shroud discovered in a burial cave near Jerusalem's Old City are completely different to the Turin Shroud. Discovery: The shrouded body of a man was...

A team of archaeologists and scientists says it has, for the first time, found pieces of a burial shroud from the time of Jesus in a tomb in Jerusalem. The researchers, from Hebrew University and institutions in Canada and the US, said the shroud was very different from the controversial Turin Shroud. Some people believe the Turin Shroud to have been Christ's burial cloth, but others believe it is a fake. The newly found cloth has a simpler weave than Turin's, the scientists say. The body of a man wrapped in fragments of the shroud was found in a tomb...

Israel experts said on Wednesday that a burial shroud known as the Turin shroud, assumed to be the type used to wrap the body of Jesus, did not actually originate from Jesus-era Jerusalem. The conclusion was based on excavation discoveries of a first-century C.E. shrouded man found in a tomb on the edge of the Old City of Jerusalem, which also revealed the earliest proven case of leprosy. Along with the DNA of the shrouded man, this was the first time that fragments of a burial shroud have been found from the time of Jesus in Jerusalem, which, unlike the...

Bl. Fr. Damien de Veuster Honolulu, Hawaii, Sep 26, 2009 / 01:08 pm (CNA).- Eleven elderly leprosy patients from Hawaii will travel to the Vatican for the canonization ceremony of Fr. Damien de Veuster, the heroic priest who cared for leprosy patients in Hawaii and died of the disease. The patients’ attending doctor called Fr. Damien their “personal saint.”The Belgian-born priest is a hero in Hawaii for caring for those victims banished to the isolated Kalaupapa peninsula. Native Hawaiians were devastated by leprosy, which appeared after the arrival of Captain James Cook in 1778.About 90 percent of the approximately...

An ancient fossil crocodile coated in armadillo-like body armor was unveiled yesterday at an environmental museum in Brazil. Dubbed Armadillosuchus arrudai, the newly described species of crocodile roamed the arid interior of Brazil about 90 million years ago, during the late Cretaceous period, scientists said. It was 6.6 feet (2 meters) long, weighed about 265 pounds (120 kilograms), and had a relatively wide head with a narrow, toothy snout.

Catholic, Crusader, Leper and King: The Life of Baldwin IV and the Triumph of the Cross By MichaModern society obsessively avoids suffering, risk and danger.  It secures everything with seatbelts and safety rails, air conditions the summer heat, prints warnings on coffee cups and advises that that safety glasses should be used while working with hammers.  Certainly such precautions have prevented misfortune.  However, since heroism and excellence are born from confronting rather than avoiding suffering and peril, the mania for safeguards has also diminished the notion of these qualities.  This is unfortunate since only those intrepid souls who confront danger,...

Baldwin IV (Baldwin the Leper), c.1161–1185, Latin king of Jerusalem (1174–85), son and successor of Amalric I. Raymond, count of Tripoli, was regent from 1174 to 1176. Baldwin was constantly engaged, except for a truce (1180–82), in defending his kingdom against Saladin. In 1183 his leprosy began to spread very rapidly; he appointed Guy of Lusignan as his regent, but in the same year he withdrew the commission and had his five-year-old nephew crowned king as Baldwin V (d. 1186). Raymond was regent for Baldwin V, who was succeeded as king by Guy of Lusignan. Minority Baldwin spent his youth...

A biological anthropologist from Appalachian State University working with an undergraduate student from Appalachian, an evolutionary biologist from UNC Greensboro, and a team of archaeologists from Deccan College (Pune, India) recently reported analysis of a 4000-year-old skeleton from India bearing evidence of leprosy. This skeleton represents both the earliest archaeological evidence for human infection with Mycobacterium leprae in the world and the first evidence for the disease in prehistoric India. The study, published in the journal PLoS One, demonstrates that leprosy was present in human populations in India by the end of the mature phase of the Indus Civilization (2000...

M. D. Anderson scientists use genetic fingerprint to nail 'killing organism' This release is available in Spanish. IMAGE: Xiang-Yang Han, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor in Laboratory Medicine at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. HOUSTON - A new species of bacterium that causes leprosy has been identified through intensive genetic analysis of a pair of lethal infections, a research team reports in the December issue of the American Journal of Clinical Pathology. All cases of leprosy, an ancient disease that still maims and kills in the developing world, previously had been thought to be caused by a...

A Mexican citizen with a potentially deadly form of tuberculosis was allowed to cross the border into El Paso, Texas at least 20 times last year due to poor communication between government agencies, the El Paso Times reported. According to a report from the U.S. General Accountability Office, Customs and Border Protection officials at the Bridge of Americas waited 14 days to notify Department of Homeland Security senior officials that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requested the CBP's assistance in the 2007 TB case. The delay allowed the Mexican citizen, who was under treatment for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, to...

"The lepers lived in a ghetto leper colony. The lepers were segregated from everybody else." "They go into the enemy's camp. They find food. They find shelter. They find gold. They find silver. They even find some drink in the enemy's camp. They find gin and juice in the enemy's camp." "Even though they were trying to destroy you, they end up blessing this small congregation of people with a skin condition." 4/6/08: Barack Obama's incoming Senior Pastor Otis Moss III delivers Hour of Power sermon, "We Have Nothing To Lose," at Trinity United Church of Christ.

In an emergency room in Arkansas, the patient exhibits dark red boils, her skin numb. Another case of leprosy in America. Not far away, a tuberculosis-infected illegal immigrant coughs while on break at the local chicken processing plant – spreading his infectious germs across the break room table. His children, also carrying the disease, which had been all but eradicated from the United States years ago, join hundreds of children at the local public school. Crossing the Mexican border, in a pickup truck filled with “migrant workers” coming to “do the jobs Americans don’t do” in our fields and food...

The medical community is warning the public: a leprosy outbreak in Springdale could blossom into an epidemic, if something isn't done soon. Doctors say at least nine cases of leprosy have been confirmed in Springdale. Local doctors say they would be shocked by even one case of leprosy in their entire career, so they say something must be done soon, in order to stop leprosy's spread. Springdale MD Jennifer Bingham says, "my initial response was: I am shocked. I am shocked we are seeing this. It's a true reason to be very worried." Medical specialists say the Marshall Islands have...