Rühli Frank J, Galassi Francesco M, Haeusler Martin
Institute of Evolutionary Medicine (IEM), University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, Zurich, Switzerland.
Institute of Anatomy, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, Zurich, Switzerland.
Clin Anat. 2016 Oct;29(7):816-22. doi: 10.1002/ca.22709. Epub 2016 Mar 31.
Palaeopathology is the science which studies ancient human diseases. Throughout its relatively young history it underwent tremendous technological and methodological improvements (from pure morphology and histology to CT scanning) that have constantly reshaped its scientific rationale. Among other achievements, the study of mummies and fossilized hominids has allowed to effectively extract ancient DNA, prove the existence of atherosclerosis in ancient times, demonstrate the presence of disease vectors, better clarify the etiology of infectious diseases otherwise only postulated on the basis of ancient accounts as well as to show the presence of spine pathology in our hominid ancestors. The research levels in this discipline are three: basic research, individual cases, population. The first and the third levels contribute most to the discipline, while the second is the one more appealing to the general public on account of its description of important cases reports. In addition, a recently introduced sub-specialty of palaeopathology, pathography is aiming to use an interdisciplinary approach to find traces of diseases in ancient literary sources and artistic representations. In spite of its discoveries, palaeopathology is not always viewed positively by clinicians because certain old-fashioned techniques are still due to technical restrictions. The authors provide a set of suggestions on how to strengthen the scientific recognition of this subject and explain at length how it could contribute to the progress of medical research. Clin. Anat. 29:816-822, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
古病理学是一门研究古代人类疾病的科学。在其相对较短的历史中，它经历了巨大的技术和方法改进（从单纯的形态学和组织学到CT扫描），这些改进不断重塑其科学原理。在其他成就中，对木乃伊和化石类人猿的研究使得能够有效地提取古代DNA，证明古代动脉粥样硬化的存在，证明疾病载体的存在，更好地阐明传染病的病因，否则这些病因只能根据古代记载推测得出，同时还能显示我们类人猿祖先存在脊柱病变。该学科的研究层面有三个：基础研究、个体病例、群体研究。其中，基础研究和群体研究层面对该学科贡献最大，而个体病例层面由于其对重要病例报告的描述，更能吸引公众的关注。此外，古病理学最近引入的一个子专业——病史志，旨在采用跨学科方法在古代文学资料和艺术表现形式中寻找疾病痕迹。尽管有这些发现，但由于某些老式技术仍受技术限制，古病理学并不总是受到临床医生的积极看待。作者就如何加强对这一学科的科学认知提出了一系列建议，并详细解释了它如何能为医学研究的进步做出贡献。《临床解剖学》2016年第29卷，第816 - 822页。© 2016威利期刊公司。
