As early as 1910, M. Ruffer reported finding schistosome eggs in Egyptian mummies. Recently, A. Rosalie David of the Manchester University Museum in England and her colleagues examined Egyptian mummies with computerized tomography, an X-ray technique. The group details its findings in the June 14 Lancet. In schistosomiasis, an immature version of the parasite floating in the water burrows into the skin of a human victim. The schistosome can live in various parts of the body for up to 20 years.
Victims can suffer from urinary, gastrointestinal, or liver disease.
Untreated, they may eventually die. The Egyptian mummies are quite different from the Atacama ancients. In most cases, the Indians of the Atacama relied on the heat of the desert to mummify their dead. The Egyptians, on the other hand, had developed by the year 2600 B.C. a sophisticated process for preserving their dead. They first removed the major organs and then relied on natron, a type of salt, to dry out the body, Hunt says.