My American Historical Review article about 19th-century African American doctor James McCune Smith has been published. Download it for FREE: doi.org/10.1093/ahr/... #history #blackhistory #data #womenshistory #histmed #histsci #bookhistory #STS @africanarchives.bsky.social
The Moral Doctor: Datafication, Activism, and the Early Medical Career of James McCune Smith in Late Georgian Scotland
Abstract. In the summer of 1836, the clinicians of Glasgow’s Lock Hospital treated the impoverished female patients with a painful new drug. The negative i
doi.org
![Sikora et al. 2025 (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09192-8), Main text (p. 1015), on leprosy:
"We also report new cases of other bacterial pathogens previously detected in paleogenomic data. The leprosy-causing bacterium M. leprae was identified in seven individuals (0.5% detection rate) from Scandinavia and only appeared from the Late Iron Age onwards (earliest case RISE174, 1,523-1,339 cal. bp). Because M. leprae can infect both red squirrels and humans[35], and archaeological evidence demonstrates that fur trade from Scandinavia, including squirrel fur, increased substantially during the late Iron and Viking Ages[36], our results support the suggestion that squirrel fur trade could have facilitated transmission[37]. Our findings are also consistent with the widespread distribution of leprosy in medieval Europe[38]."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:twqucin7jqhlteuk37lqltr7/bafkreidq7hry63vk5s3dahnachlqoqf5tfxhefuwu3fsrh73gfwwelsq6u)
