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The history of leprosy was traced by geneticists in 2005 through its origins and worldwide distribution using comparative genomics. They determined that leprosy originated in East Africa or the Near East and traveled with humans along their migration routes, including those of trade in goods and slaves. The four strains of ''M. leprae'' are based in specific geographic regions. Strain 1 occurs predominately in East Africa, Asia, and the Pacific region; strain 2 in Ethiopia, Malawai, Nepal/north India, and New Caledonia; strain 3 in Europe, North Africa, and the Americas; and strain 4 in West Africa and the Caribbean. They created a map of the dissemination of leprosy in the world. This confirmed the spread of the disease along the migration, colonisation, and slave trade routes taken from East Africa to India, West Africa to the New World, and from Africa into Europe and vice versa.〔Marc Monot, Nadine Honoré, Thierry Garnier, Romul Araoz, Jean-Yves Coppée, Céline Lacroix, Samba Sow, John S Spencer, Richard W Truman, Diana L Williams, Robert Gelber, Marcos Virmond, Béatrice Flageul, Sang-Nae Cho, Baohong Ji, Alberto Paniz-Mondolfi, Jacinto Convit, Saroj Young, Paul E Fine, Voahangy Rasolofo, Patrick J Brennan, Stewart T Cole, "On the Origin of Leprosy", ''Science'' 308. 5724 (13 May 2005), DOI: 10.1126/science/1109759〕 In 1873 G. H. Armauer Hansen in Norway discovered the causative agent of leprosy, ''Mycobacterium leprae.'' This was the first bacterium to be identified as causing disease in humans. From the 19th century, European nations adopted some practices of India and China, administering naturally occurring oils. They were given by injection and orally, and were believed to cure some people, but results were often disputed. It was not until the 1940s that the first effective treatment, promin, became available.〔Guy Henry Faget〕 The search for additional anti-leprosy drugs led to the use of clofazimine and rifampicin in the 1960s and 1970s. Later, Indian scientist Shantaram Yawalkar and his colleagues formulated a combined therapy using rifampicin and dapsone, intended to mitigate bacterial resistance. Multidrug therapy (MDT) combining all three drugs was first recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) of the United Nations in 1981. These three anti-leprosy drugs are still used in the standard MDT regimens. ==Etymology== The word ''leprosy'' comes from ancient Greek ''Λέπρα'' (), "a disease that makes the skin scaly", in turn, a nominal derivation of the verb ''Λέπω'' (), "to peel, scale off". ''Λέπος'' (Lepos) in ancient Greek means peel, or scale, so from ''Λέπος'' we have ''Λεπερός'' (''Λεπερός'' = who has peels—scales) --> and then ''Λεπρός''(=leprous).〔Greek Dictionary Tegopoulos-Fytrakis, Athens, 1999〕 The word came into the English language via Latin and old French. The first attested English use is in the ''Ancrene Wisse,'' a 13th-century manual for nuns ("Moyseses hond..bisemde o þe spitel uuel & þuhte lepruse." ''The Middle English Dictionary,'' s.v., "leprous"). A roughly contemporaneous use is attested in the Anglo-Norman ''Dialogues of Saint Gregory,'' "Esmondez i sont li lieprous" (''Anglo-Norman Dictionary,'' s.v., "leprus"). Throughout history, individuals with leprosy have been known as lepers. In the 21st century, this term is falling into disuse as a result of the diminishing number of leprosy patients. Because of the stigma to patients, some prefer not to use the word "leprosy," preferring Hansen's disease. The term "leprosy" is still used by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization.〔("What Is Leprosy?" ), ''THE MEDICAL NEWS'' | from News-Medical.Net, Web. 20 Nov. 2010〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of leprosy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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