OBJECTIVE: To document and differentially diagnose facial pathology found in an isolated skull from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, southeastern Caribbean. To directly date this individual using radiocarbon dating.
MATERIALS: Isolated skull recovered from Petite Mustique Island.
METHODS: Describe facial pathology occurring in this individual and compare with known diseases or disease processes that impact the craniofacial complex.
RESULTS: Features of the rhinomaxillary syndrome are present, indicating a diagnosis of leprosy. Dating places the time of death to the late 18th or early 19th centuries.
CONCLUSIONS: Analysis of the rhinomaxillary syndrome produces a diagnosis of early-stage leprosy in an individual that correlates with the apparent attempt to locate a leprosarium on Petite Mustique Island in the first decade of the 19th century.
SIGNIFICANCE: Location and time corroborate historical records of at least one attempt to locate a leprosarium on Petite Mustique Island. Only directly dated individual with leprosy in the western hemisphere and possibly the earliest yet recorded.
LIMITATIONS: This is an isolated find that is archaeologically unprovenienced.
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH: Professional archaeological survey of Petite Mustique.
BT - International journal of paleopathology C1 -https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34785426
DA - 11/2021 DO - 10.1016/j.ijpp.2021.10.004 J2 - Int J Paleopathol LA - eng N2 -OBJECTIVE: To document and differentially diagnose facial pathology found in an isolated skull from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, southeastern Caribbean. To directly date this individual using radiocarbon dating.
MATERIALS: Isolated skull recovered from Petite Mustique Island.
METHODS: Describe facial pathology occurring in this individual and compare with known diseases or disease processes that impact the craniofacial complex.
RESULTS: Features of the rhinomaxillary syndrome are present, indicating a diagnosis of leprosy. Dating places the time of death to the late 18th or early 19th centuries.
CONCLUSIONS: Analysis of the rhinomaxillary syndrome produces a diagnosis of early-stage leprosy in an individual that correlates with the apparent attempt to locate a leprosarium on Petite Mustique Island in the first decade of the 19th century.
SIGNIFICANCE: Location and time corroborate historical records of at least one attempt to locate a leprosarium on Petite Mustique Island. Only directly dated individual with leprosy in the western hemisphere and possibly the earliest yet recorded.
LIMITATIONS: This is an isolated find that is archaeologically unprovenienced.
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH: Professional archaeological survey of Petite Mustique.
PY - 2021 SP - 7 EP - 13 T2 - International journal of paleopathology TI - A probable case of leprosy from colonial period St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Southeastern Caribbean. UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1879981721000826?via%3Dihub VL - 36 SN - 1879-9825 ER -