Carla Valentine

Carla Valentine Instagram – My Carlaween countdown countinues with a variant on the theme of “zombie”. This is a specimen of leprosy from our collection (apologies this is a very early photo from my path museum career!) Many years ago, according to the Catholic World Report, lepers were considered the “zombies” of the Middle East; the “walking dead” whose illness cut them off from the land of the living. Steve Parker, in his book Kill or Cure, states that because Catholic doctrine decreed lepers the Living Dead, they had no rights whatsoever. Nowadays the condition is instead known as Hansen’s Disease as that term doesn’t have the same negative religious connotations. (It’s named after the Norwegian scientist Gerhard Hansen who discovered its causative agent in 1873.) Contrary to the much earlier belief that it was a punishment from God he showed it was caused by Mycobacterium Leprae, an unusual organism that is often artificially grown or ‘cultured’ on armadillos.
This leprosy specimen is from 1881: “a hand from a male native of Mauritius” and the split through one of the fingers was more than likely caused by exploratory tissue sampling. However what is visible is the shrivelliing of the fingers and spots of discolouration. Also caused in cases of Hansen’s Disease are loss of sensation (which leads to injury) and deformity
#carlaweencountdown #humanremains #carlaween #remains2beseen #anatomy #pathology #zombie #zombies #leprosy #halloweencountdown #halloween #thelivingdead | Posted on 28/Oct/2023 18:30:32