August
17
/ 2020
The ancient origins of tuberculosis have finally been identified after a team of scientists followed a trail of molecular breadcrumbs through the lung of a Danish mummified bishop. Peder Pedersen Winstrup (1605-1679 AD) was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, and this larger than life man became an accomplished architect, scientist and book-printer. He was then appointed as a prominent Lutheran bishop overlooking Lund in Scania, in what is today Sweden, until he died after a long battle with illness at age 74. It was this Danish mummified bishop that provided new evidence of the origins of tuberculosis. According to an entry on Mummipedia, in June 2015 Winstrup ’s grave was relocated from the Lund crypt to the northern tower at which
