Tuberculosis and leprosy in antiquity: an interpretation.

FOR many years, palaeopathology has been concerned with recording individual examples of disease in earlier peoples. Recent years have shown an increasing interest in the wider view of disease in antiquity, and it is within this context that the discipline of palaeoepidemiology has developed. The interaction of human disease and environment has always been complex. It is doubtful if there is any single disease that can be directly or causally attributed to a specific environmental circumstance. But it is for the palaeopathologist to elucidate the biology of specific diseases in early peoples, and it is for the archaeologist and social historian to elucidate the associated environmental factors. The present paper outlines a hypothesis concerning the two diseases, leprosy and tuberculosis, and their relation to some aspects of human social evolution.