Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz
-
Mem. Inst. Oswaldo Cruz · Dec 2006
Review Historical ArticlePatterns of tuberculosis in the Americas: how can modern biomedicine inform the ancient past?
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that continues to take its toll on human lives. Paleopathological research indicates that it has been a significant cause of death among humans for at least five thousand years. ⋯ Indeed, the origin of pre-Columbian New World TB has been and remains hotly debated, and resolution of this controversy will likely only come with integration of data and theory from multiple disciplines. In this paper, we discuss the pre-Columbian TB controversy, and then use research from biological and biomedical sciences to help inform paleopathological and archaeological studies of this ubiquitous disease that plagued our ancient forbears.