My attempt at an epidemiological look at US Revolutionary War deaths. Thankfully I had the work of giants like Ken Burns and PBS with great data to work off!
#EpiSky #HistoricalEpi #IDSky #WarHistory
open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...
After 30 years of decline, tuberculosis cases started rising again in the U.S. post-COVID and globally. One of the biggest lessons from epi history is simple: Diseases don’t disappear all that often, but the infrastructure keeping them at bay does.
#IDSky #EpiSky
open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...
Ever since I first played The Oregon Trail game as a kid I knew disease was the real killer on the trail. Years later it’s even clearer how the Overland Road functioned as a massive disease corridor across the continent.
#EpiSky #IDSky #History
open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...
Between 1791 and 1804, two mosquito-borne diseases destroyed the French expeditionary armies in Saint-Domingue. It also completely obliterated the conditions necessary for Napoleon’s planned empire in North America.
#EpiSky #History #IDSky #SciComm
open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...
The American Revolution was nearly lost to smallpox. ~8,000 Americans died in battle during the Revolution. Disease killed at least twice that number and possibly far more when including prisoners of war. Smallpox was the silent enemy during the Quebec campaign.
open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...
New post: A tour of the infectious disease landscape in the pre-contact Americas. Helminths in the Arctic, treponemes across the continent, fungal disease in the Southwest, Chagas in the Mexican highlands.
#History #EpiSky #IDSky
substack.com/@theedgeofep...
The debate on the origins of syphilis has been raging for centuries. Ancient DNA has us closer than ever to an answer but not everything is totally clear yet. Here I go over the debate and current state of the evidence.
#History #EpiSky #IDSky
open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...
A parasite that shouldn’t survive cold climates somehow appears in 7,000-year-old Brazilian coprolites. No trace in the north, no easy route in. One of the most interesting mysteries in ancient disease ecology.
#History #EpiSky #Hookworm #Anthro
theedgeofepidemiology.substack.com/p/the-myster...
Archaeologists once found a perfectly preserved Viking turd the size of an iPhone. It turned out to be one of the most informative fossils ever discovered. We learn a ton from fossilized feces, including things about diet, environment, and pathogen load.
open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...
What’re the oldest diseases we know of?
Viral “fossils” >400M yrs old, cancer in a 240M-yr amphibian, worm eggs in Triassic dino poop, a 275M-yr infected jawbone.
Life’s first battles were microbes sabotaging each other.
#MedSky #EpiSky #History
open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...
Somehow The Edge of Epidemiology just cracked Substack’s Top 50 in science. Huge thanks to everyone reading, sharing, and nerding out about the history of disease with me.
New post: Humanity’s Deadliest Companions
open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...
#EpiSky #History #MedSky #IDSky
Might have to play around with blender! That looks great!
Oh my god, so cool! Thank you!!
Let’s call it a stylistic choice born of taste and somewhat broke.
That or I learn a bit of photoshop finally.
That’s fair. Hoping a friend will fix it (low budget rn)
Hoping a friend of mine can fix it. Low budget currently🙃. Appreciate the checklist for when I can get that done!
Many thanks, Count. Hope you enjoyed.
Thanks for sharing!
We’ve lived with microbes for millions of years. They built our immune systems, rewired our DNA, and killed billions along the way.
I tried to tally their bill: Humanity’s Deadliest Companions.
#EpiSky #MedSky #History #Anthropology #Archaeology #IDSky
open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...
Leprosy survived the empires that once tried to quarantine it. In the early 1900s, colonial governments across the Pacific built “islands of isolation”, of which some ended up being half hospital, half prison. On Makogai, patients made a world of our own.
open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...
#History
In 1858, Staten Islanders burned down their own quarantine hospital in the name of “self defense”
A short story about fear, fire, and public health: open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...
#EpiSky #PublicHealth #History
Very true!
And yep! Worth mentioning that 42% of the participants had GI side effects but not bad enough to discontinue. Also no change in BMI, so not thinking they lost muscle mass, but definitely work out when taking GLP-1s!
GLP-1 drugs started as diabetes meds, became weight-loss blockbusters… and now might prevent migraines by lowering intracranial pressure and calming neuroinflammation.
When endocrinology and neurology collide, weird things happen.
#Migraine #EpiSky #MedSky #GLP1
open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...
America isn’t dying young because of food dyes or seed oils.
It’s fentanyl, drag-strip roads, and gunfire.
Those three explain much of the 4-year U.S. life expectancy gap vs peers.
Bad news: they kill a lot of people.
Good news: they’re fixable.
open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...
Single-dose lysergide (MM120) beat placebo for GAD and the effect lasted to 12 weeks without trial-provided therapy.
Promising signal ≠ green light. We still need an active placebo, pragmatic eligibility (keep usual meds), and functional outcomes.
#MedSky #lsd
open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...