WILTIMS #188: The Importance of TB-ing Dermis

TB-associate lesions in a
 3000-3500 year old egyptian mummy

We have entered that part of the year where, thanks to our affiliation with a predominantly Jewish institution, we get three four-day weekends in the next month. To make up for this, it seems like our classes have tried to put as much material as possible in our reduced class time. Unless I'm feeling unusually motivated, all of this means there will be a few fewer posts in the coming month. But today's is good enough to make up for the next couple days:

TIL: Though we've only been exposed to viruses like ebola and HIV for the last half-century, we have, as a species, been battling bacterial infections like tuberculosis (TB) since ancient times. Leprosy has been explicitly mentioned in historical and religious texts, and TB has been diagnosed both macro- and microscopically in mummified remains from ancient Egypt. Only now, 3-4,000 years later are we finally turning the tide.

Armadillo PSA: There's no
armor for leprosy; get tested.

Mycobacterium leprae, the bacterium that causes leprosy, is the slowest growing pathogen known. It doubles every 14 days (that's in comparison to every 20 minutes for E. coli). It also only grows in humans, mouse footpads and armadillos. Because M. leprae prefers the cooler tissues of the body (similar to the normal temperature of armadillos) it often causes lesions on the skin and in peripheral nerves. Untreated, this disease is gruesome. And because of the resilient ancient stigma associated with it, there has been a campaign to rename it Hansen's disease so that people will come get treatment before suffering the more deadly and debilitating consequences of the infection.

Lady Windermere syndrome is caused by an opportunistic infection of mucous buildup in the lungs by Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare. The name comes from an Oscar Wilde character who was a very proper English lady. Though, as defensive librarians have pointed out, her character was never actually sick in her eponymous play, the reference hints at the cause in real people. A proper lady is not supposed to cough in front of company, and the only otherwise healthy people who develop this syndrome are older women who, it is hypothesized, learned to always suppress their cough reflex and thus built up collections of mucus in their lungs for this obscure bacterium to grow in.

M. marinum a fresh and salt-water bacterium that causes "fish tank granuloma."