CHICAGO – Studies of Peruvian mummies have found the native peoples appeared to have suffered from tuberculosis even before the arrival of Spanish conquerors who were thought to have introduced the disease to South America, researchers said. The mummies studied were those of the Chachapoyan people who were entombed 500 to 1,000 years ago in caves along sheer cliffs high in the Peruvian Andes. They were discovered in 1996. „We were surprised at the large percentage of mummies who had an infectious disease process in the spine and lungs which resembled tuberculosis,“ said Gerald Conlogue of Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn. „It was thought the Spanish conquerors brought TB to South America and these mummies predate them,“ he added in a report delivered to the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. He and colleagues said they based their findings on X-Ray imaging of 205 mummies found at Laguna de los Condores. The process also revealed evidence of arthritis. Most were in their late teens to early 40s at death.

Reuters