Representations of skin lesions and facial deformities have been found on pre-Inca pottery from Peru and Ecuador dating back to the first century AD. There are evidences that some forms of leishmaniasis prevailed as early as this period.
Also there were descriptions of the oriental sore were found on tablets belonging to King Ashurbanipal in the seventh century BC but were likely taken from information first recorded in 1500-2500 BC.
There are detailed descriptions of oriental sore by Arab physicians including Avicenna in the tenth century, who described it as Balkh sore from Northern Afghanistan, and there are later records from various places in the Middle East including Baghdad and Jericho.
New Word cutaneous and mucocutaneous leishmaniasis was well depicted in fifth century AD sculptures and sixteenth century Spanish missionary writings.
In 1901, Scottish army doctor William Leishman identified certain organisms in smears talent from the spleen of a s patient who had died from ‘dum-dum fever’.
It was not discovered until 1921 that Leishmania was transmitted by a vector. The search leading to the implication of a specific vector was sought for a number of years, before the Sergent brothers Edouard and Etienne, demonstrated through experimental proof the transmission to humans from sand flies of the genus Phlebotomus.
History of leishmaniasis
