Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Leprosy in Florida

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

Florida has a sudden uptick in cases of leprosy – but isn’t that just a weird Biblical disease? It’s real, it’s just fairly rare. Justin and Dr. Sydnee bring the history of leprosy from a 2014 episode, in addition to updated research and treatments, as well as what exactly is going on in Florida.Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers https://taxpayers.bandcamp.com/

Saw bones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books! One, two, one, two, three, four! I'm your co-host Justin MacRill. I'm your co-host Justin MacRill.

I'm your co-host Justin MacRill. I'm your co-host Justin MacRill. I'm your co-host Justin MacRill. I'm your co-host Justin MacRill. for the mouth. Wow. Hello, everybody and welcome to Saw Bones, a Merrill Turb, Miss Guided Medicine. I'm your co-host, Justin McRoy. And I'm Sydney McRoy. And we're, this is interesting.

With this, everything. That's a great way to start our podcast, so people will know this one's interesting. This one is interesting. This one's interesting. We've had some medicine, some health issues in the news that you wanted to touch on. There's a great amount of overlap between this topic

and a topic that we have covered before. But when I say before, I mean before, before, before, before. 2014. 2014. We're gonna go back to the Halcyon days, the silver age of saw bones And we'll hear sort of a condensed like a condensed version of our episode on leprosy That's right and then and then we've got to talk about Florida. We got to talk about Florida

y'all talk about Florida. We'll be right back with you right after this Take it away us Without kids god, God, they're going to sound so chill. So relaxed. So relaxed. So leprosy dates back if you didn't know this Justin to probably 4,000 BC. Maybe longer. This is a long time. Yeah, it's been around a really long time. They took DNA from a corpse from old Jerusalem and they figured that it had leprosy from the DNA. Okay.

It was missing some skin. Yeah, ancient scientists. Yeah, I think it's just like a bet. Like, hey, I bet they had leprosy. I bet they had leprosy. Where's his nose? We've heard a lot about it. Somebody had to have it. I have a lot of mercy. I don't know. And this is some stuff. He don't look good. Well, yeah. It's a mummy. Thousands of years old.

And all throughout history, different, you know, Hippocrates talked about it in 460. I mean, this is probably one of our oldest and most discussed diseases throughout history. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those that pops up in the Bible a decent amount. Absolutely. Yeah. To an extent where you kind of start

to seem like half the people had it. It comes up a lot. Do you know where the word leprosy comes from? Come on, Sid, obviously not. Okay, so there are two possibilities. There's the Indo-European term, lap, which means the removal of scales. So they thought, because of some of the appearance of some of the skin lesions, that perhaps that could be where it's from, or from lepros which is the Greek word for scales. I mean, I figure that's probably

from the same common root, both things. But anyway, that's where the word leprosy comes from. And again, that's because of the appearance of the sum of the skin. Now, there are a lot of, before I kind of tell you the history, let me just say that a lot of people don't really understand what leprosy causes, like what the disease leprosy,

how that manifests in a person. Shameful. It's like read a book, you know? Right. They think it's like, you know, when they nick themself shaving, or maybe jelly. Possibly. I think you disagree.

But there's a lot of misconception about people having leprosy and like losing body parts. And I don't know that I just think people, people's vision of leprosy is like losing body parts. And I don't know that I just think people's vision of leprosy is not quite what it was or is today. Well, clear it up for us. So what is it? What does leprosy really look like? Okay, so there are different forms.

So it depends on which form of leprosy you have, but it could just present as some like a numb pale patches on your skin, some areas on your skin where the color changes and they become numb because it also damages nerve tissue. You can have areas which actually, you know, the skin becomes thickened and scaly informs nodules. There is possibility of like nasal deformity and you can lose you know parts of your like the nasal structure parts of your nose as a result. And then you can have weakness as well and kind of this diffuse like nervous system involvement where your hands and feet and legs and arms eventually become numb or weak or you know the nerves become damaged. But that's very different from I think what we picture.

And again, it depends on the patient and it depends on which form you have. It's really slow growing this disease. It has a super long incubation period. So it's really hard to figure out when people got it. It's usually three to five years that you carry it around before you ever have a symptom. Wow. But it's... You're saying I could have it right now and just not that? Oh, that's not.

Possibly. Probably not. Okay. Why not? Because this is interesting. Do you know that about 95% of the population is not susceptible to infection? That does make me feel better, slightly better. I think that's a pretty staggering statistic,

because I got the same impression that, like, biblically, everybody had leprosy. Basically. But just, it has to do as much with your immune system's reaction to the bacterium as it does to the disease itself. So, like I said, 95% of people are not, you know, even after coming to contact with it, are not going to actually become infected. It's transmitted by nasal droplets. It usually has to be long sustained contacts. You got to hang around people a long time.

So it's not something that you're just going to pass somebody in a hallway and get. There's some evidence that maybe broken skin too, but it's not easy to get and it's not common. Got it. Okay, I'm feeling better. I'm feeling comfortable discussing this now. And you can only get it from humans, maybe our medillos. All right, let's talk about the Bible. Finally. Let's move into something that's not controversial at all.

Yeah, let's talk about religion. In the Bible, it divides leprosy into clean leprosy and unclean leprosy, which are not actual medical categories of any significance. Unclean leprosy was probably leprosy. When they talk about a patient who had unclean leprosy, that probably was the real deal. They talked about changes in their skin, losing, again, losing body parts, probably focusing on the nose because that is something that can happen, but big skin lesions. So when they referred to somebody who had that, that they probably got it right. Then they talked about clean leprosy.

Clean leprosy. The decaf, the leprosy from. Wasprosy. The decast of the leprosy. Was, and these people were treated differently. If you had unclean leprosy, you would not get around these people. They were completely quarantined off from the rest of society. And if any of their, if they touched anything that you owned, you would burn it. Clean leprosy was not treated the same way. These were people who just had their skin lost its pigment.

So maybe this actually included some people who had leprosy, but it also probably included a lot of people who had Vidaligo. What's Vidaligo? It's a skin condition where people with a darker pigment had skin lose the melanin. Okay. Yeah, and so people would become paler.

And so there were probably a lot of people who actually just had ventiligo who were thrown into this category. Doesn't seem fair. And this was, this is common. There's a lot of stuff that's discussed in the Bible and then, you know, from the years that follow and the time periods that follow

that was called leprosy that again probably wasn't. Sariasis was mistaken for leprosy that again probably wasn't. Sariasis was mistaken for leprosy. Tiniacapitis or like a fungal infection of the scalp because you would lose like a patch of hair and it didn't look very pleasant. So they thought that was leprosy. And there are all kinds of fungal infections of the skin. Athletes probably would have been mistaken

for leprosy back then. Bad spray tans, anything. Exactly, snooki has leprosy. I knew it. Now eventually, we figured out what is and isn't leprosy in 1873 when a doctor, G.H. Armore Hanson, Armoa. The least popular handsome, brother. In Norway, discovered the causative agent, my go back to your hem leprey. So kind of related to burculosis, same family there. He identified the agent that caused disease because it was actually in the 1800s, pretty rampant in Norway, in Iceland, in England, in those regions.

That's why leprecy is also known as Hansen's disease. Did you know that? I always thought there for the gangbub sucking your head, but it's good to know that I was incorrect. Yes. How we try to treat this over the year, Sydney? Like a lot of the diseases we talk about on this show, leprosy was seen as a punishment or a curse from God or the gods. You know, you did something wrong and now this horrible thing has been visited upon you. And so pray. Get right with God. Have holy people pray over you. Hopefully it'll go away.

That's probably the oldest treatment for anything I think would be fair to say. Still probably the most widely prescribed too, for any ailment as a first line. You know, that's a good point. That's probably the longest existing treatment for anything. Yeah. Besides, we're up some dirt in it. One of my dad's favorites. And Adam.

Also, run it off. Run it off Caleb. Run it off. Caleb, what's that full name? Kane able combined them Caleb Caleb. The third son Caleb. Third son Caleb. So if prayer doesn't work, what else? Let's try blood. That's what everybody likes to try, right?

Good first line. It seems very there's a lot of power. We assigned to it, I think. Yeah, absolutely. And the Greeks tried it, the Egyptians, the Chinese, they all tried blood for leprosy. You could either rub it on, you know, the affected areas, or you could drink it. Okay. Originally, the blood you would prefer virgin blood, or perhaps child blood? Yeah. And you know, we didn't have like a great way of getting that blood out. No, I don't wanna think about where the virgin

and child blood came from. In, I guess in a more humane period, we switched to animal blood. I still don't know that that's humane. So lamb or dogs blood was used. Do you know that this carried on until 1790? She's just a long time. Yeah. We kind of took a breather on treating loppercy, huh? Yeah. A lot of a lot of blood. Now,

there were other things thrown in there from time to time. Snake venom was a popular, a popular suggestion, especially cobra. And you know, who is a big fan of that. Let me guess. Guess. Plenty, the elder. If you don't have a snake, you could try some scorpion venom. Perhaps a poisonous frog. Or there was some kind of climbing fish that you could use that had some kind of venom. Okay. That's horrifying. Oh, fish can climb now on their poisonous fountains. That's amazing.

Just the thing to take my mind off my leprosy. You know if there are poisonous climbing fish, they definitely exist in the Ohio River. Yeah, absolutely. We definitely have them here. Four eyes. Yeah. You know, eventually this would morph into increasing doses of bee stings. You don't want to try snake venom. Let's just

sting you with a bunch of bees and see if it makes your leprosy. I mean, tuck my mind off my leprosy. If you do remember scarification, we talked about that once before. It wasn't like a, so you do with like a sharp metal thing? Yeah, sharp metal thing. You cut people and scar them and make damage the skin. It's in the family of, um, of a treponation, right? Did it not only talk about it? Yeah, I think we did talk about it. Okay. Interreponation. You could do it with or without arsenic, however you prefer. I'll take with. So cut people off and

or cut people up and then pour arsenic in their wounds. None for me, thanks. In the middle ages, they tried castration, which probably to be fair was as much to prevent them from having children as to actually try to fix it. You pass that way? You could pass that way, you could pass genetically. No, it doesn't.

One very popular treatment for decades was Chalmugra oil. Chalmugra oil. Chalmugra oil. A lot of people have probably heard of this. It's from a tree. There's some confusion over witch tree, but the important thing for you to know is it's from a tree. The active ingredient is hiddenocarpic acid.

I know it has a bunch of fatty acids in it too. And that acid is anti-bacterial. Hmm. It really is. So the thought was that you could either, like turn it into a mixture like suspended in gum or an emulsion or something, you could put it on topically. They tried to give it to people orally,

but it made you really, really nauseous. When that didn't work, they tried to give it to people rectally. Don't know if that would have been my next move. No, me neither. But that was bad, because then it caused ulcers. I don't know if this is a good solution. So instead they started injecting it into people,

IV or intravenously or intramuscularly. They, you know, did it work or not? I don't know. There's some information that maybe it was successful at times. Maybe it maybe for a little bit. It didn't help in the long run, probably, but there it was some evidence that maybe, I mean, and this was used for quite a long time, like all the way up until we had actual medications for leprosy before using chamovo oil. It's interesting. It seems like because of the this is just like this is again some my classic speculation but it seems to me that perhaps the biblical stigma because it was so had such a reputation of being connected to being dirty or being unclean that maybe we weren't as because we these are really long for treatments we normally cling to stuff like this that isn't working for like centuries

that maybe there wasn't the rush to try to treat it and take care of it. I think that's a very good point because as I looked for a lot of different treatments, I didn't find the usual just lists and lists of weird stuff that we gave people to eat or drink or paste all over their body. You know, I mean, usually I look up these illnesses and I find just pages and pages of, and

then try this tree and then try this plant and then, you know, and it's not out there as far as I can tell for leprosy. We found this chalmugra oil, which seemed to work maybe, and we stuck with it for a long time. There are a handful of other weird treatments in there. But sadly, I think because you're right, for a long time, it was seen as the patient's fault. So they did something wrong,

that they were dirty in some way. They were cursed or something. And then the other thing, the last thing I kind of want to talk about, I guess, in terms of treatment, although this isn't really a treatment, it was one of the things that was done for people who had leprosy, it was quarantined. It was very common all throughout history that if you had leprosy, you were kept away from the general population. The reasoning for this was twofold. One, to protect everybody else from you

because the belief was that leprosy was very contagious. In reality, it wasn't. But the fear was that if you touched someone with leprosy, you would get it. Right, which would treat very tough times inaccurate. Right. But then it also was because of the stigma against people with leprosy, they were a common target of violence.

Oh, wow. And murder. So keeping people with leprosy in quarantine was also for their protection. If they weren't in quarantine, they had to, especially throughout the Middle Ages, where bells or clappers, as they were coming ring or to clap together as they were moving through crowds, so that people would know they were coming and be able to move away from them. They even, depending on which way the wind was blowing, they had to walk on a certain side of the street

so that people wouldn't have to breathe their hands to blue pass them. Cut them out. I know. They already have leprosy. So, which is why so many people ended up in leprosylums or leprosariums is what they were called. They started in the 13th century all the way through to the 20th century. We had these. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. All across Europe and Asia and eventually into the US. At their peak, there were probably 19,000 in existence at one time. There were colonies, especially some of them in the monastic order, so a monastery would kind of

sponsor a colony of people who had leprosy, so they didn't actually have to be in a building, because a lot of these places were similar to psychiatric asylums. because a lot of these places were similar to like psychiatric asylums. They were called leper colonies. And the idea was that we would just have like a little community where you could only live if you had leprosy. The reason that Munk Scott involved is that they thought that someone who had leprosy was actually in purgatory on earth,

that their suffering was holier than the suffering of other sick people because having leprosy was a way that you had already died but you were stuck on earth so you were in purgatory. Well, they were certainly holier. Really? Unacceptable. That's the only one you get. unacceptable. Fair enough. Unacceptable. That was my one. That's the only one you get. There was actually a group of monks that were specifically founded for the care of people

with leprosy and also made up of people with leprosy called the Order of St. Lazarus, in which you probably get that reference. You're a good little. Yeah, that's a super popular one. It's like classic. So I happen to Lazarus Justin for those who don't know. He died of leprosy. No, just died.

He just died. Eddie, Jesus, right back. Right, so that would make sense that they would call it the order of St. Lazarus if they thought that people with leprosy were dead on earth. Yeah. So people who did stay in asylums, who weren't in colonies, but in asylums,

were usually separated by gender in order to prevent children because the children of lepers who were seen as a sin against God, unfortunately. Like I said, this eventually happened in the US. The biggest was in Carville, Louisiana, and it was just known as, I forget what it was called, it was just known as Carville eventually. It's like gone to Carville, Louisiana, and it was just known as, I forget what it was called, it was just known as Carville, eventually. So gone to Carville was probably a good euphemism for somebody with leprosy. Remember we had gone to Dwight for somebody who was getting clean off alcohol. You're gone to Carville if you got leprosy. And while in most parts of the world, in the mid-1900s with the invention of the drugs

we used today for leprosy, a lot of these things stopped. There weren't leprosaryums anymore. In some parts of the world persisted in Japan. There was one open until 2008. Wow. Which I think is pretty crazy. And there are still possibly, as of the last thing I read, possibly there's still a handful of people left in the silums all over the world with leprosy. Today we have treatments, we have a cure for leprosy. Oh, great. The first modern treatment that was invented was called Promin. It was quickly replaced with better drugs, a DAPSONE, Chlofazamine, refampin.

Those three are used in triple therapy today. Much like tuberculosis, if anybody's familiar with it, we use multiple drugs to treat it. You don't just get one. Leprecy is the same way. So we use these medications today with great effectiveness. Leprecy is still around,

which a lot of people don't know. As of 2012, there were 180,000 cases, that was the prevalence. The incidence of leprosy, do you know the difference? I do not. The incidence is how many cases we have each year. The prevalence is how many cases total exist right now. So incidence is tough with leprosy because it hangs around. Right, so it's how long. Tell exactly when it happened.

Yeah, when it happened. But it still exists, mostly in India, Brazil, Nepal, Tanzania, we just treat everybody. We can. We will. Just wipe this thing out. You know, there were there are a lot of movements to do that. A lot of organizations, money and good people putting their time into trying to eradicate leprosy. I don't think it's an unrealistic goal. I think with it being a primarily human disease, that makes it possible. That's why smallpox was easier to eradicate because it was a human disease. So I think it's possibility we've got good treatments.

We've just still got work to do. If I need to wipe every armadillo off the face of this planet, so how may God I'll do it. I think the armadillos would be law on my list. Let's start with treating all the people with leprosy. And remembering that leprosy is just another illness that people unfortunately can get.

And it's no, should be no more stigmatized than the common cold. The medicines, the medicines that ask you let my God for the mouth. You there! Have you considered listening to the Beef and Dairy Network? An award-winning comedy show in the form of a newsletter podcast for the Beef and Dairy Industries. Well, maybe you should. And why don't you try our most recent episode, episode 99, which features American man, Paul F. Tompkins, playing Queen Elizabeth II's former personal beef semeliay. Her match to Queen Elizabeth II and I, laying on the floor of her bedroom, just helplessly

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Fanta is the podcast for all those complex and complicated conversations about the gray areas in our lives. You might have conflicting feelings about Kamala Harris or Capacando or interracial friending. Mm-hmm. That's all right, because we do too. And we get into it every single Thursday.

Catch this lay where the audio at maximumfund.org. That's maximumfund.org slash fan time. That's F-A-N-T-I. Come get all this good, good. Or this great, great. Okay, Sid, so that's that's that's Leprecy. or at least leprosy as it stood in 2014. So very long ago. Well, I don't think a lot of our ancient facts about like leprosy have changed.

Let's hope not. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's a thing. No one's stunning research. I mean, there is new, I mean, there is new stuff that is true, but all the old stuff holds. Yeah. And I will say one of the first things I wanna address is we kind of update like where are we now with this disease and what is happening and why is Florida,

what's just what's going on down there guys? Just like what's your wild now down there Florida? I don't know what you're doing, but I mean, I guess we do. But yeah, we do. We do. The first thing I wanna address is that we are trying to move away. And I know this can be difficult when we're trying to communicate that something's happening, right? You're trying to, as a public health notice, like there is a disease that is emerging in higher numbers and an area and we want

people to know it's happening. And if it's something that you're familiar with, like I think most people know the word leprosy. They've heard it. You know, it's a very well known thing. You need to use that word to communicate the disease. We're trying to move away from that as a term, though. We're trying more and more to call it Hansen's disease, which is not a new name.

It's been a name for leprosy for a very long time. Okay, so when you first told me about this, I thought that somebody named Hanson had kind of come around recently and be like, actually, you know what I'd like? Name it after me. Go for it. No, no, the name Hanson's disease is a very old disease for leprosy named for the first person to identify the bacteria as the causative agent, which we have referenced already. But I think because the word leprosy has such ancient roots. Like when the Bible.

Right. Well, it's from the, I mean, we talked about it from the leprosy. So like that word has so permeated our culture and like our human understanding. And we have a lot of connotations with it, most of them pretty negative, right? So it's kind of like a double edged sword.

It's a useful for communicating quickly what the disease is, because we all know what it is, which is not always true for disease processes. But on the flip side, it's so stigmatized. So stigmatized that the word, not necessarily leprosy, but the term leper has become, has been used as kind of a derogatory term for people, right?

Like not just someone who has contracted this illness that we call leprosy, but it has all these other connotations because it is so thoroughly permeated our understanding. So we're trying to move away from that word and call it Hansen's disease more, but it's tricky because you still want people to know what we're talking about. I thought it would be useful.

We mentioned briefly that that is for Gerard, Henrik, Armoire, Hansen, Dr. Hansen. We'll call him. And feel free, Justin, do you need to say anything about Hansen, Dr. Hansen, we'll call him. And feel free, Justin, do you need to say anything about Hansen right now? Do you need to sing? No, I will restrain myself. No, when you say, when you wait out like that, you make me feel like a clown. I'm not a clown, Sydney. I'm not a clown.

I know you're not a clown. I just figured you would need to do that. No, Sydney. I know. Okay, I know you love Hansen. I do love Hansen. I know. Okay. I know you love Hanson. I do love Hanson. I know.

There are, I mean, one of the top brother bands in my opinion of three brothers, absolutely. Better than the Jonas Brothers or? I don't want to start an absolute war. We can't do this on this podcast. So we mentioned there is the Norwegian scientist, Dr. Hanson, for whom Hanson's disease is named. I thought talking a little bit about him and then getting into what's going on in Florida might help us sort of cement this name, try to use it.

Although I think for, for gosh, I don't know how many decades to come, if you're going to call it Hansen's disease, you probably need to put in parentheses next to it. The disease formerly known as leprosy. That's the way, that's the way we change language, though, right? You kind of have to talk about both of them in concert, Freemade, and know what you're talking about, and hopefully someday we can move away. And still the bacteria, my co-bacterium leprosy, still sounds, you know.

Yeah. Anyway, so I thought it was interesting, because I thought, well, I'll read a little bit more about Dr. Hanson Maybe that'll help cement it in my mind as well And what I thought was most interesting is that he there was a lot of controversy around his discovery of This bacteria because if you think about it, we are talking about a disease that has been around I mean all of human history as far as we know it, right?

Like we have, we have so many descriptions of, as we talked about, leprosy and then what might not have been actual leprosy. But it was so part of culture that to finally be the scientist who said, and this is what caused it, would be a big deal, would be something that could be controversial. And especially since prior to him actually naming the bacteria, there were a lot of beliefs one still that it was some sort of, as we mentioned, like curse something that you've been stricken with by some sort of omnipotent beam, perhaps, or by an evil source of something.

It was very much tied to something that was like spiritual and not an illness, not a medical condition. So there were still even, when we're talking to the mid to late 1800s, even at this point, there were still people who probably kind of believe that, even if they didn't wanna say it out loud, who still felt that way. And even beyond that, the predominant scientific view is that it was genetic.

There were hereditary factors involved. And so you couldn't get it unless it ran in your family. And that was very much like a scientific theory at the time. And this makes sense if you think about the fact that like 95% of us have a natural immunity to Hanson's disease. So... Really?

Yeah. Most of us aren't going to get it. If that was in the episode, by the way, it was nine years ago, I'm sorry, I'm mind if you might have forgotten. You may have forgotten that. And so you can see we're like, are why do some people get it and others don't? And even to this day, the question, how is it transmitted?

We cannot fully answer. Really? Yes, which is scary, right? That's wild, yeah. We believe strongly that it takes prolonged person toto-person contact. And we think respiratory droplets are the most likely mode of transmission. Could physical contact also, like if you actually have, you know, lesions, could physical contact prolonged, physical contact,

skin-to-skin, could that be possibly, we like the respiratory droplets better, but maybe this too. And then also armadillos are part of it, right? Nine banded armadillos are a known reservoir. So somehow, contact with an armadillo maybe could be part of it. So you could see like with a motor transmission that isn't clear with a kind of spread that isn't going to be as direct as like you're in a room with somebody with leprosy and you're going to catch it because more than likely you're not, you're immune. In a family, it's going to hit different people.

It all would make it very difficult to elucidate. Dr. Hanson specifically, because he studied under Dr. Danielson, who was kind of his mentor, and he would actually go on to marry his daughter. This is like a theme, by the way, right? How often do we find this in these stories? Yeah, that's tough. Right. And also in Dr. Who, I mean, that has happened.

So, Antony. That's the truth, that's the truth. So he studied under Dr. Danielson, who was like the leader of scientific research on leprosy at the time. And like I said, at this point, there wasn't an infectious etiology. We didn't know yet. But Dr. Hanson devoted his life to kind of finding this, to taking pathological samples from patients with Hanson's disease and studying them and studying them and studying them and looking for

what is the agent that causes it. Now at this point, as we're getting into where he's doing his work, we understood Coke's postulates, so like how do you prove that this bacteria or this thing we're looking at under a microscope, whatever it is, bacteria, virus, whatever. How do you prove that it causes this disease? I mean, you have to find it in someone who's sick, and then you have to put it in someone who isn't sick, and then they have to get sick with the same clinical syndrome, and then you have to get a sample from them and look under a microscope and find the same thing. And all likely, they probably won't get it, right?

Because they're probably immune. And this is also a very slow growing, slow multiplying bacteria, so it's really hard to culture. That's another big thing, like hurdle when you're trying to prove like what causes it is like you isolate it from tissue and you put it in a petri dish

and you grow more of it. You've probably seen petri dishes with little colorful dots all over them. Those are bacterial colonies, typically, or fungal or whatever. And in order to do that, they have to multiply and grow. Well, if it's super slow, you might assume it didn't grow at all.

Oh, yeah. And so it was really hard, and plus you have to have the right medium, the right food, so to speak, for whatever you're trying to grow. So all of this had not been done, and he was trying to do this. Now, he didn't have great skills at first in staining. Like, I mean, it's a very specific set of lab skills

to know like what kind of stains to use to make different things show up on a slide. What will they, how will they react to that? Like, you don't want to destroy whatever you're trying to do, how will the tissues react? Like, it's a very specific set of skills. And at that point, we were still developing them. So he actually, he tried for a while, it wasn't working. He actually went and like did a whole

extra course in pathologic anatomy and all this to try to figure out how can I, how can I improve my histopathology skills and to go back and then again try to stain all these slides of tissue and figure out what is it. He finally found a rod shaped organism in the tissues. He still wasn't able to really stain it well, but he did find an organism. And he said, I'm finding this little rod in every single Sample this has got to be it. I love the idea of him showing that around of people like I know I know I know I know the Staining spat I get it. I get it. Please don't say anything. I get it. I know I know but

Look at this I found it. It's a lot. It's found it. Sorry. That look great. All right. My best. I'm gonna name it after me He didn't actually name it after him. But anyway, so he found this and he published and he talked about it. But it didn't, like I said, he didn't satisfy all of Coke's posthilates. He didn't grow it. He didn't stain it. He didn't grow it.

He didn't give it to anybody and then reproduce it. So like all of that other stuff to say definitively, this is it. He wasn't able to do. Now, there was another young scientist, a German bacteriologist named Albert Nyser, who if you are in the scientific community, Nyser, Nyseria, he would later go on to find Nyseria, gonorrhea, the causative agent of gonorrhea.

So, I mean, pretty famous, right? But don't you get excited when you're in your name? I get excited. I do think it would be great if we stop calling it leprosy and start calling it nicer disease. You know the nicer name for leprosy? Well, I already have nicer. Yeah, but listen to what I'm saying, it's very good. The nicer name for leprosy.

It's nicer. I gotcha. Well, but this would be, this would be hugely controversial because basically Dr. Nicer studied under Dr. Hanson and said like, hey, I'm a bacteriologist. I've done a lot more staining. Do you want me to try to staining it? Basically, can I have these tissues and go staining? We all know that guy. So he took the tissues back to his lab. There is always a guy. He was successful in like staining and then that was a way to learn more about the bacteria. I'm going to eventually allow it to be grown and cultured and all this other stuff was done.

And so he published all this later and got the credit for it. And eventually it was, I mean, originally it was called Niser's Niser Niser in EISS ER. In case you're in EISS ER. So nice serious. It's your transcribing this. Well, I'm, and nicer, nicer, nicer, anyway,

it was originally called Nisers Bacterium. First, because he's the one who published about it. It was like, I stained it, it's fine. I did it. I did it. I did it. And Hanson got really mad, and then there were a bunch of people in Norway who were defending Hanson, and we're like, no, Hanson did it. I did it. I did it. I did it. And Hanson got really mad and then there were a bunch of people in Norway who were defending Hanson and were like, no, Hanson did it first. Just badly. It's bad at staining.

And you just stole his work basically. That's not a nice one. But the whole thing was complicated because at that time, and this is always, man, we tell these stories about these medical people from history and then you hit this kind of roadblock. The reason that Hanson, huh? One of them was a Nazi, no? I don't know about that, but no, I'm not saying they're Nazis. But what I will say is that when Hanson was desperate to try to prove, because he realized it until he proved all this extra stuff, the Coke's postulates, until he did that,

he wasn't really going to get full credit for it. In desperation, he tried to inoculate a woman's eye with some of the material that he got from a leprosy lesion. Yes. So he tried to unknowingly, I mean, obviously this person did not give permission. He tried to give a woman leprosy. Hanson? Yes.

But we're going to call the disease after him. We still call the disease after him. I'm going to say, hey, everybody, I'm sick of leprosy. Sorry. He faced like legal action for it. It was his medical career was obviously sideline for a while. I mean, he bounced back. He was able to continue practicing after that.

So anyway, and I mean, I will say like, I don't know that Niser is the better option because I was reading a little bit about him. He did some studies on syphilis later with people who were sex workers that were also without permission and unethical. So anyway.

All my heroes let me down. I know. Well, I mean, the history of medicine and anyone who is marginalized depending on the time and place we're living in is terrible. And we know this repeatedly. I think it's important when we talk about like these sort of scientific heroes that we name things after that heroes be in quotes. Scare quotes.

Yes. So anyway, he went on to get the credit eventually for Hanson's disease. And that is where we get the name Hanson's disease. And I mean, Niser got gonorrhea so I don't know what he's complaining about. I mean, he didn't get gonorrhea. Hey, you don't know.

Well, I don't know if he got, actually, I don't know. I don't know. When you read about what happened to them, it just says like, Niser died of sepsis. So I don't know what. You got him, Sid. You brought him down. Hansen died of, he had a stroke,

and then I think he had a heart attack, but both of those were probably related to the fact that he had syphilis. So, Sid just can't, Sid just can't be happy until she gets to people's deaths. So, what's the fall all the way down to the grave? There's, there's where Hansen's disease comes from. What's the story in, in Florida? Okay. So, for a panic inducing second, you were looking at me and I thought you were expecting

me to tell you I was I had a real palpitation there. I know the story in Florida. This just came out. I was reading the CDC's emerging infectious disease case report of lab or scene central Florida, USA 2022 and this just came out like literally this month. So cases of leprosy have been increasing in Florida. Now what we have seen overall worldwide is a downtrend in the numbers of cases of leprosy have been increasing in Florida. Now what we have seen overall worldwide is a downtrend in the numbers of cases of leprosy because it still exists in different parts of the world. We don't see a ton of it in the US. We did see some number around 200-ish cases a year

most of the time from people who immigrated to the US from somewhere else where it's endemic, right? What what is it's endemic, right? What is concerning and I don't want to use the word interesting because that always sounds bad in medicine to say something's interesting when it's an illness. What's concerning is that these cases in Florida, and specifically the case report that they detail in this that was just issued by the CDC, do not, they are not in people who have immigrated to Florida. These are in people who live in Central Florida, Brevard County is where most of them are taking play. There are other counties,

but that is where most cases have been. There've been 15 so far this year, and it looks like they're catching leprosy Hanson's disease. I'm gonna try to use Hanson's disease. Let's try to just use that. They're catching Hanson's disease in Let's let's try to just use that. They're catching Hanson's disease in Florida. They're getting in Florida. We have wondered if Hanson's disease could be endemic,

meaning you can catch it naturally, like it occurs naturally there. In the Southeast United States for a long time, this has been questioned because we, as we're seeing this downtrend worldwide and this downtrend in people who immigrate to the US, we're seeing this downtrend worldwide and this downtrend in people who immigrate to the US, we're seeing a slight uptick in cases that seem to be endemic. So this has been questioned. Also, the nine banded armadillo, anywhere where it is, it can carry the bacteria. So perhaps we've also, I mean, honey, I don't, I don't have a vendetta against Armadillo's.

Well, so you think it's very tics. You think it's very cool and chill that give people hand-sensitive? No, I don't think it's very cool and chill, but I don't think we don't know because in this case, specifically, they asked this guy, did you have a lot of contact with an Armadillo? And he said no. And he said, I remember. They're like, how could you not remember that? I would definitely, definitely remember if I had extensive connections with an armadillo and he said no. And he said, I remember. And they're like, how could you not remember that? I would definitely, definitely remember

if I had extensive connections with an armadillo. They could not find any risk factors that we kind of think of as the risk factors for Hanson's disease. And they found it recently too in the UK in a certain kind of squirrel, a certain kind of like red squirrel or something. So, and it's been eliminated from the UK for a long time.

So then it just, we didn't think there was a reservoir outside of humans until we found the armadillos. Now maybe it's in squirrels. Now that opens the question, has it always been in other animals that we just didn't identify? Or a similar zoonotic infection, a similar infection that occurs in animals that can be transmitted to humans? Is there something like that that we've been missing? If I was looking for a sneaky animal that is sneakily hiding diseases, I don't think to be fair that the armadillo, the humble armadillo would be high on my list of suspects. He seems very unassuming.

Well, and that's sorry. I talked about eradicating him. Please don't talk about that. But this is, I mean, it's concerning because if it is endemic and people are just going to get it, and we don't really understand completely how it's spread, we need to figure out, we need to figure out how and where is it coming from.

The, I will say, please don't be alarmed at this because like I already mentioned, most people are never gonna catch Hanson's disease. And it does seem to take prolonged contact of some sort with whatever the source of it is. It's not something that you get from, it's not like COVID. You don't get it from being in the same room

with somebody for a few minutes, right? You don't get it from casual contact, from shaking hands or hugging or sharing, you know, toilet seats or whatever. You know what I'm saying? So like, I don't want this to be something that people freak out about, but it definitely, it definitely is new.

It's definitely different. And my bigger concern is just what is this telling us? What is this symptomatic of? And it's a couple of things, right? One, we knew that these sort of neglected tropical diseases, which this is considered, Hansen's disease is one of the neglected tropical diseases, we knew that there's a possibility that they would spread more with climate change. We've known this for a long time.

This is in the list of diseases that is likely to be impacted by climate change. And now we're seeing more cases in the Southeast US possibly indicating that it is endemic there. So that, I mean, it's just, it's playing out what scientists have been warning us for a long time is gonna happen

if we don't do something. If we don't make bigger strides, not necessarily as individuals, but as a society, as a government, as corporate entities towards addressing climate change. And then there are other things like, I think that Florida specifically has been called out recently for their sort of like their public health infrastructure is not as robust perhaps as it could be, is that a diplomatic way of saying it? It's very diplomatic, actually. And that perhaps they are taking some unscientific views

of how to address things. And we know that historically, rises in cases of Hansen's disease have been associated not just with like socioeconomic situations, which they definitely have, but also they have found it with like areas with lower education levels. So basically like, if we're not educating

the public about this, if we're not, if we don't have a robust public health system that can contact trace, figure out where things are coming from, help people understand their risk, help people know what to look for so they can come in. Because this is curable. It takes a long time. You have to take three medicines and it can take a year or two, but it is curable.

So you can get treatment if you know that's what it is. I think these are the concerns around it. Not so much like if you go to Disney, you're going to get Hanson's disease. I'm not saying that at all. But what I'm saying is we need... You're not not saying that. No, I'm saying we need to have a robust public health infrastructure in every state and every place on earth. We need to address climate change more vigorously if we actually care about

these things. And I do think it's important the CDC has said, travel to Florida is now something to consider. If someone presents to you, if you're a healthcare professional and someone comes in and you're looking at them and thinking, could this be Hanson's disease? A question you should ask is, have you traveled to Florida, especially central Florida? So that's my takeaway. I, I, I, again, I don't think this should alarm everyone, except that there are things we could be doing as a society that our government could be doing, that Floridian's government could be doing to address these things and possibly prevent it. Because these are just, I mean, like all of these cases, malaria and Hansen's

disease, and I mean, there will be more. There will be more. It's not just about the weather, it's not just about natural disasters, it is about infectious diseases and the spread of illnesses. We need to do more. We need to do more. Or pressure, government officials to do more. That's going to do it for us this week on solbonaums.

Thanks, the taxpayers for using their song medicines as the intro and outro of our program. And thanks to you for listening. We won't be here with you next week. We're going to be on vacation. But we'll be back with you right after that. So stay tuned, I guess. That's gonna do it for us for this week. Until next time, my name is Justin McAroy.

I'm Sydney McAroy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. Maximum Fun. A Workroad Network of Artist-owned shows supported directly by you.