Leprosy is a very, very old disease. The first documented evidence of it dates back to 4,000-year-old skeletal remains found in India. It is chronicled throughout human history, across all cultures.

With a declaration from the World Health Organization, Chile just became the first country in the Americas and the second country in the world (after Jordan in 2024) to be officially declared leprosy-free. That means it's been more than 30 years since the country saw a locally acquired case of the bacterial infection, which can develop slowly over up to 20 years, manifesting as painless lesions or lumps on the skin.

In the United States, leprosy (also known as Hansen's disease, after Gerhard Armauer Hansen, who discovered the causative bacterium in 1873) is rare, with approximately 150 to 250 new cases reported annually. While not highly contagious, cases of leprosy have more than doubled in the southeastern U.S. over the last decade, particularly in central Florida, where it may now be endemic.

Fortunately, the disease is curable using a cocktail of antibiotics — and roughly 95% of all people are naturally immune.

Body of Knowledge

Approximately one in five humans carries the particular genetic combination that allows them to produce and/or smell S-methyl-thioacrylate and S-methyl3-thiopropionate, the two aromatic chemical compounds in asparagus that produce that particular odor later excreted in urine. The rest of us are as-spared.

Doc Talk

Heterochromia: A condition in which people have different colored eyes. It's rare in humans (less than 1%), less so in some dog species, including Siberian huskies, Australian shepherds, border collies, dalmatians and Catahoula leopard dogs. The last are easy to spot even without mismatched eyes.

Mania of the Week

Micromania: Pathological self-deprecation or belief that one is very small (possibly the comedian Steve Martin). Obscure. Look it up. Hint: 1977.

Life in Big Macs

One hour of scrubbing the bathtub on your hands and knees burns 258 calories (based on a 150-pound person), the equivalent of almost half of a Big Mac.

Never Say 'Diet'

The Major League Eating speed-eating record for grits is 21 pounds in 10 minutes, held by Patrick Bertoletti, whose critics berated his gritty performance ad hominy.

Best Medicine

Seeing her friend Sally wearing a new locket, Meg asked if there was a memento of some sort inside.

"Yes," said Sally, "a lock of my husband's hair."

"But Larry's still alive," Meg said.

"I know, but his hair is gone."

Observation

"I have a great diet: You're allowed to eat anything you want, but you must eat it with naked fat people." — American comedian Ed Bluestone (1948-2024)

Medical History

This week in 1987, a patent for "keeping a head alive" was issued to Chet Fleming (U.S. No. 4,666,425). Fleming built an experimental cabinet that provided physical and biochemical support for an animal's head severed from its body.

Oxygenated blood and nutrients would be circulated by means of tubes connected to arteries and veins that emerge from the neck. A series of processing components removed carbon dioxide and added oxygen to the blood.

If desired, waste products and other metabolites could be removed from the blood, and nutrients, therapeutic or experimental drugs, anti-coagulants and other substances added to the blood.

Fleming thought that after being thoroughly tested on research animals, the patent might be applied to humans suffering from various terminal illnesses, but the patent was not further pursued. Fleming was clearly ahead of his time.

Ig Nobel Apprised

The Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate achievements that make people laugh, then think. A look at real science that's hard to take seriously and even harder to ignore.

In 2014, the Ig Nobel Prize in psychology went to a trio of researchers who found that people who habitually stay up late are, on average, more self-admiring, more manipulative and more psychopathic than people who habitually arise early in the morning. They also tend to be more tired.

Medical Myths

If applied topically, honey has some modest antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. It does not, however, provide broad and substantial relief from seasonal allergies — a notion based on the idea that pollen in honey triggers a beneficial and neutralizing immune response.

Rather, the preponderance of limited evidence suggests those traces of pollen grains in honey might more often act as antigens, triggering an allergic reaction in sensitive individuals or even the development of new allergies.

Med School

Q: How many kinds of tonsils are there?

A: Four. The palatine tonsils are the ones seen at the back of the throat. But there are also lingual tonsils (base of the tongue), tubal (around the opening of the Eustachian tube in the nasopharynx, the upper part of the cavity behind nose and mouth) and adenoid (high up in throat behind nose). All together, these tonsils form Waldeyer's ring, which serves as a gatekeeper to all things entering the airways and digestive tract, grabbing pathogens and warding off diseases.

Curtain Calls

During the so-called dancing plague of 1518, between 50 and 400 people took to the streets of Strasbourg in what is now France to dance without stop for weeks. Several purportedly died, possibly from heart attacks, strokes or exhaustion, though food poisoning and stress-induced mass hysteria are also suggested.

To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Nazmi Zaim at Unsplash