Leprosy is much less common today than it was during the Middle Ages, but the bacterium that causes this debilitating disease has hardly changed since then, a new study finds. Researchers sequenced ...

Leprosy has been long gone from Great Britain. Or so we thought. Medieval Leprosy Lurks In British Squirrels People and leprosy go way back. Way, way back. "It's been around for at least 5,000 years ...

A woodcut from the 1800s, Healing the Lepers, depicts the common tableau of Jesus healing a leper as his disciples look on. Look through a series of 15th-century woodcuts, and you'll find that the ...

Sam Walters is the associate editor at Discover Magazine who writes and edits articles covering topics like archaeology, paleontology, ecology, and evolution, and manages a few print magazine sections ...

Medieval residents of Winchester, England, probably got their leprosy from red squirrels in the area, according to a team of archaeologists and geneticists that studied remains from two archaeological ...

In medieval England, red squirrels were popular pets and their fur was widely used to trim and line clothes Humans may have caught leprosy from squirrels in medieval times, researchers say. They ...

Laura holds a Master's in Experimental Neuroscience and a Bachelor's in Biology from Imperial College London. Her areas of expertise include health, medicine, psychology, and neuroscience. Laura holds ...

Romanian health authorities have confirmed rare leprosy cases for the first time in over 40 years, while stressing that the ...

People and leprosy go way back. Way, way back. "It's been around for at least 5,000 years and probably longer," says Stewart Cole, who directs the Global Health Institute at the Swiss Federal ...