The Early History of the Baghdād Boil

Abstract

The last few years have seen a great and almost universal interest in the history of medicine. It is strange that, in spite of the researches that have been made in the epidemics and diseases of ancient times, none of the writers who have worked on the various aspects of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis, as the Baghdād Boil is called in medical languagehas been able to trace the history of the disease before the nineteenth century. It is not as though it were a disease that could have escaped the notice of the ancients. Cutaneous Leishmaniasis is characterized by a superficial ulcer, sometimes as large as the top of a coffee cup, which runs a slow and protracted course. It is not as though it were a disease confined to some distant and uncivilized part of the globe. It is found in South America, North Africa, and all over the Middle and Near East. Why, then, is there no history of the disease ? Where did it start ? Who can claim the honour of introducing the Bouton de Biskra into Moroccothe Baghdād Boil into 'Irāq, the Delhi Boil into India, and the Tropical Sore into non-tropical Persia ?