In a scientific first, an international team of researchers from the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the United States has found evidence to suggest that at least one species of animal was passing leprosy on to humans in medieval England. The animal in question is the red squirrel, a creature that lived in even closer proximity to people in the Middle Ages than it does today.
While contact with armadillos has been identified as a risk for leprosy in the modern age, never before has a medieval animal been linked to leprosy outbreaks experienced by human populations in more ancient times.
Studies have shown that modern red squirrels do carry the bacteria that causes leprosy. But there is no evidence of squirrels passing leprosy to people in the modern age, which is why this new discovery is so intriguing.
Squirrels were often kept as pets, as depicted in this Holbein painting, but they may have been carrying the deadly leprosy bacteria (Hans Holbein the Younger / Public Domain)
“The finding of leprosy in modern squirrels was surprising and then it’s incredible that we found it in the medieval period,” study co-author Sarah Inskip, an archaeologist from the University of Leicester, told the BBC. “It really goes against the narrative that it was a human disease specifically.”
The Truth was Hidden in the Bones
In an article just published in the journal Current Biology, the archaeologists and genetic experts involved in the new study explain how they were able to establish a link between medieval…
