10 Oldest Known Diseases

Perhaps the most difficult trick in defining the oldest known diseases may be in how you define the word "disease." For the purposes of this article, we'll explore only human, infectious, viral or bacterial diseases. So nix tooth decay, psoriasis, gout, obesity, rickets, epilepsy, arthritis and other human difficulties that are perhaps best classified as "conditions." Notably absent from this list are some of history's biggest killers, including influenza, measles, and the black plague. This is because these diseases require and the level of population density that didn't develop until humans began living in cities. Influenza, measles, and the plague are social. Malaria isn't. Here are 10 of the oldest known diseases, listed in no particular order. 10: Cholera - Around 400 B.C., the Athenian physician Hippocrates catalogued the diseases of his world. Cholera was on the list. But while Hippocrates provides the first proof of cholera beyond a reasonable doubt, the disease likely originated along the Ganges River while Athens was still a very young place. Cholera lives in many of the world's water sources, but it's most dangerous when it has an environment in which there are many people among whom it can spread. The Ganges River happens to be one of the most ancient locations of human population density, and so it was long, long ago that upstream users gathered in the numbers needed to pollute the water for those downstream. In other words, as more people become infected with cholera, they pollute the water supply with more bacteria, which in turn infects more people. 9: Typhoid - From 430 to 426 B.C., a great plague swept through the city-state of Athens. The historian Thucydides describes the symptoms: "People in good health were all of a sudden attacked by violent heats in the head and the throat or tongue, becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and fetid breathIf they passed this stage, and the disease descended further into the bowels, inducing a violent ulceration there accompanied by severe diarrhea, this brought on a weakness which was generally fatal." The disease couldn't have come at a worse time. The plague contributed to Athens' eventual loss to Sparta in the Peloponnesian War and a long hiatus for democracy in world history. 8: Leprosy - The first concrete mention of the disease is in the Egyptian "Ebers Papyrus," written in 1550 B.C., which recommends, "If you examine a large tumor of Khonsu in any part of a man and it is terrible and it has made many swellings. Something has appeared in it like that in which there is air ... Then you shall say concerning it: It is a swelling of Khonsu. You should not do anything against it". People can carry the bacteria that cause leprosy for 20 years or more before showing symptoms and during this time can spread the disease. One historical challenge in treating leprosy was diagnosis. In its early stages of expression, leprosy looks much like syphilis and somewhat like psoriasis. Misdiagnosis landed many psoriasis sufferers in leper colonies where many eventually did, ironically, contract and die from leprosy due to increased exposure. 7: Smallpox - Generally, the goal of mummification is to preserve soft tissue. So, as you would expect, Egypt provides a treasure trove of information on ancient, soft tissue diseases. One of the first researchers to turn a paleopathological eye on Egyptian mummies was Sir Marc Armand Ruffer, who in his 1921 book "Studies of the Palaeopathology of Egypt" described three mummies with "dome shaped vesicles" extremely similar to those expected of smallpox. The most ancient of these mummies was dated 1580 B.C. and the most recent was the mummy of Ramses V, who died in 1157 B.C. To date there has been no modern analysis of Ramses V that could definitively determine if his condition was, in fact, smallpox. But the circumstantial evidence seems strong. Smallpox is one of history's greatest killers, responsible for 300 to 500 million deaths in the 20th century. 6: Rabies - Rabies is ingenious: Not only does it infect a host, but it also hijacks the host's brain in a way that makes the host want to bite things. This is how rabies gets a ticket to ride. And it's been doing it since at least 2300 B.C., when it was described in the Eshuma Code of Babylon. 5: Malaria - The Romans offered the first cure for malaria: an amulet worn around the neck, inscribed with the powerful incantation "abracadabra" [source: Shah]. Over the years, we've attempted various other cures: adding oil to stagnant puddles to smother mosquito larvae, using pesticides, vaccines and nets, and even leveraging high-tech solutions such as a laser that shoots mosquitoes in midair. The first definite mention was in the Chinese "Nei Ching" ("The Canon of Medicine"), around the year 2700 B.C. 4: Pneumonia - People breathe more than 11,000 liters (3,000 gallons) of air every day. And so, as you would expect, the lungs are a favorite home of bacteria, viruses, fungi and even parasites. The umbrella term we use to describe fluid in the lungs is pneumonia. Hippocrates wrote that fluid in the lungs should be called pneumonia if, "the fever be acute, and if there be pains on either side, or in both, and if expiration be if cough be present, and the sputa expectorated be of a blond or livid color". But he also distinctly calls it a "disease of the ancients." Where exactly does pneumonia place in this list of oldest known diseases? Because it's a soft tissue disease, the archaeological record isn't strong. But it's likely that various forms of pneumonia have been around as long as our lungs. 3: Tuberculosis - In 2008, a team of scientists from University College London excavated the submerged ancient city of Alit-Yam, off the coast of Israel. There, they found the buried remains of a mother and her child. Both skeletons showed bone lesions characteristic of tuberculosis. DNA testing confirmed it: Tuberculosis is at least 9,000 years old. While the Alit-Yam finding is the oldest confirmed case of TB, characteristic lesions have been found on bones found in Turkey, dated about 500,000 years ago. 2: Trachoma - Trachoma is a chronic infection of the upper eyelid that eventually results in the eyelid constricting and turning the eyelashes in toward the cornea. Over time, the rubbing of the constricted eyelid and especially the eyelash makes the patient go blind. This is what happened to Aetius, Paulus Aeginetus, Alexander, Trailaus, Horace and Cicero. And trachoma is described in Hippocrates and in the Egyptian Ebers papyrus. But researchers make a compelling case for earlier trachoma found in a corner of the world little associated with early diseases: Australia. Aboriginal skeletons from 8000 B.C. show a common skull lesion around the eyes. 1: Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (RMSF) - Mitochondria are small organelles found in nearly every cell in the human body, performing a function essential to human life, converting glucose from food to energy which cells can use. But Mitochondria carry their own genetic material (separate from human DNA), and these genes look a lot like those of bacteria. In other words, it's very likely that the mitochondria that we depend on for survival are the products of an ancient infection, which predates animal life, let alone humans. Remember, we're talking about a disease that existed before animal life. So the oldest disease isn't RMSF itself, but some unnamed proto-disease with genetic similarity. http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/cellular-microscopic/10-oldest-known-diseases.htm