Parasites in Past Civilizations and Their Impact upon Health

With its broad focus ranging from medicine to history, this book provides a solid historical understanding of how the nature of past cultures and civilisations affects human risk of disease. For readers fascinated by ancient societies and past civilizations as well as those intrigued by the health of our ancestors.

Parasites have been infecting humans throughout our evolution. When complex societies developed, the greater population density provided new opportunities for parasites to spread. In this interdisciplinary volume, the author brings his expertise in medicine, archaeology and history to explore the contribution of parasites in causing flourishing past civilizations to falter and decline. By using cutting edge methods, Mitchell presents the evidence for parasites that infected the peoples of key ancient civilizations across the world in order to understand their impact upon those populations. This new understanding of the archaeological and historical evidence for intestinal worms, ectoparasites, and protozoa shows how different cultures were burdened by contrasting types of diseases depending upon their geographical location, endemic insects, food preferences and cultural beliefs.