History of schistosomiasis (bilharziasis) in humans: from Egyptian medical papyri to molecular biology on mummies

Abstract

Schistosomiasis is a parasitic infection that has evolved together with the humankind. Evidence in ancient Egyptian medical papyri or Assyrian medical texts reported signs and symptoms that could resemble schistosomiasis; similarly, some biblical passages describe an epidemic (depicted as a 'curse') that has been hypothesized to be associated with schistosomiasis' spread in Mesopotamia. In the modern era, Theodor Maximilian Bilharz and Patrick Manson (the 'father of tropical medicine') gave an impetus to the knowledge about the parasite and its spread until the present time, when immunoassays and molecular biology on mummies allowed retracing important milestones regarding schistosomiasis' evolution. Schistosomiasis affects more than 200 millions of people worldwide and it is an emblem of how hard it is to prevent, control and treat neglected tropical diseases. Our work reviews the history of schistosomiasis with regard to human infections.

Keywords: Egyptian mummies; Human Schistosomiasis; evolution; history; molecular biology.

Figure 1.

Milestones in schistosoma discoveries. legend. All the images not representing authors’ creations have been included unaltered in the figure, and are either in the public domain or from https://commons.wikimedia.org. In the latter case, the original materials have been distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The figure for the Egypt’s campaign is the painting by Antoine-Jean Gros (1810) – The battle of Pyramids. Château de Versailles, France. The figure for modern diagnostic technologies on mummies is Nesi mummy (dynasty XX), Biblioteca Museu Víctor Balaguer, Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain.