No rheumatoid arthritis in ancient Egypt: a reappraisal.

Title

No rheumatoid arthritis in ancient Egypt: a reappraisal.

Creator

Kwiecinski Jakub; Rothschild Bruce M

Publisher

Rheumatology international

Date

2016
2016-06

Description

Antiquity of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) remains controversial, and its origins in Americas or in the Old World are disputed. Proponents of the latter frequently refer to RA in ancient Egypt, but validity of those claims has never been examined. Review of all reported RA cases from ancient Egypt revealed that none of them represent real RA, instead being either examples of changing naming conventions or of imprecise diagnostic criteria. Most cases represented osteoarthritis or spondyloarthropathies. Also review of preserved ancient Egyptian medical writings revealed many descriptions of musculoskeletal disorders, but none of them resembled RA. This suggests that RA was absent in ancient Egypt and supports the hypothesis of the New World origin of RA and its subsequent global spread in the last several centuries.

Subject

*Ancient Egypt; *History; *Joints/pathology; *Osteoarthritis; *Rheumatoid arthritis; *Spondyloarthropathy; Adult; Ancient; Arthritis; Egypt; Female; History; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Paleopathology/history; Rheumatoid/diagnosis/*history; Textbooks as Topic/history

Rights

Article information provided for research and reference use only. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).

Pages

891–895

Issue

6

Volume

36

Citation

Kwiecinski Jakub; Rothschild Bruce M, “No rheumatoid arthritis in ancient Egypt: a reappraisal.,” NEOMED Bibliography Database, accessed March 28, 2024, https://neomed.omeka.net/items/show/3173.