Devin Teichrow

How Mosquitos Killed Napoleon’s North American Empire Dream Between the years of 1791 and 1804, two mosquito-borne diseases destroyed the French expeditionary armies in Saint-Domingue (modern day Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and ended up tipping the balan...

Between 1791 and 1804, two mosquito-borne diseases destroyed the French expeditionary armies in Saint-Domingue. It also completely obliterated the conditions necessary for Napoleon’s planned empire in North America.
#EpiSky #History #IDSky #SciComm
open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...

#EpiSky #Historh #IDSky

The American Revolution Was Nearly Lost to Smallpox Disease as History’s Invisible Army

The American Revolution was nearly lost to smallpox. ~8,000 Americans died in battle during the Revolution. Disease killed at least twice that number and possibly far more when including prisoners of war. Smallpox was the silent enemy during the Quebec campaign.

open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...

Devin Teichrow (@theedgeofepidemiology) New post: A tour of the infectious disease landscape in the pre-contact Americas. Helminths in the Arctic, treponemes across the continent, fungal disease in the Southwest, Chagas in the Mexican high...

New post: A tour of the infectious disease landscape in the pre-contact Americas. Helminths in the Arctic, treponemes across the continent, fungal disease in the Southwest, Chagas in the Mexican highlands.
#History #EpiSky #IDSky

substack.com/@theedgeofep...

When Did Syphilis Enter Europe? The Origins Debate For a family of pathogens that has likely been with humanity since the dawn of agriculture, Treponema has a funny way of keeping its secrets.

The debate on the origins of syphilis has been raging for centuries. Ancient DNA has us closer than ever to an answer but not everything is totally clear yet. Here I go over the debate and current state of the evidence.
#History #EpiSky #IDSky
open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...

The Mystery of Hookworm in Ancient America: A Parasite Found When and Where it Shouldn't Be Yet I’m currently researching for a piece on the disease ecology of the early Americas.

A parasite that shouldn’t survive cold climates somehow appears in 7,000-year-old Brazilian coprolites. No trace in the north, no easy route in. One of the most interesting mysteries in ancient disease ecology.
#History #EpiSky #Hookworm #Anthro
theedgeofepidemiology.substack.com/p/the-myster...

#EpiSky #History #Archeology #Anthropology #Paleontology

The Ghosts of Meals Past: What We’ve Learned from Fossilized Poop When construction first broke ground for the Lloyds Bank building in York in 1972, within a moist layer of peat was something each of the crew would have seen countless times before, although never on...

Archaeologists once found a perfectly preserved Viking turd the size of an iPhone. It turned out to be one of the most informative fossils ever discovered. We learn a ton from fossilized feces, including things about diet, environment, and pathogen load.

open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...

The Oldest Diseases We Know Of What they tell us about life, survival, and our place in deep time.

What’re the oldest diseases we know of?
Viral “fossils” >400M yrs old, cancer in a 240M-yr amphibian, worm eggs in Triassic dino poop, a 275M-yr infected jawbone.

Life’s first battles were microbes sabotaging each other.
#MedSky #EpiSky #History

open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...

Somehow The Edge of Epidemiology just cracked Substack’s Top 50 in science. Huge thanks to everyone reading, sharing, and nerding out about the history of disease with me.

New post: Humanity’s Deadliest Companions

open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...

#EpiSky #History #MedSky #IDSky

Might have to play around with blender! That looks great!

Oh my god, so cool! Thank you!!

Let’s call it a stylistic choice born of taste and somewhat broke.

That or I learn a bit of photoshop finally.

That’s fair. Hoping a friend will fix it (low budget rn)

Hoping a friend of mine can fix it. Low budget currently🙃. Appreciate the checklist for when I can get that done!

Many thanks, Count. Hope you enjoyed.

Thanks for sharing!

Humanity’s Deadliest Companions: Checking the Till on the Deadliest Microbes in History I was reorganizing parts of my bookshelf the other day when I came across my copy of Deadly Companions by Dorothy Crawford.

We’ve lived with microbes for millions of years. They built our immune systems, rewired our DNA, and killed billions along the way.
I tried to tally their bill: Humanity’s Deadliest Companions.
#EpiSky #MedSky #History #Anthropology #Archaeology #IDSky

open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...

#PublicHealth #EpiSky #PublicHistory

Islands of Affliction: Leprosy and Empire in the South Pacific Leprosy is much older than any empire.

Leprosy survived the empires that once tried to quarantine it. In the early 1900s, colonial governments across the Pacific built “islands of isolation”, of which some ended up being half hospital, half prison. On Makogai, patients made a world of our own.

open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...

#History

The Night Staten Island Burned Its Hospital: Fear, Fire, and the Forgotten Quarantine War of 1858 Staten Island, September 1858.

In 1858, Staten Islanders burned down their own quarantine hospital in the name of “self defense”
A short story about fear, fire, and public health: open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...

#EpiSky #PublicHealth #History

Very true!
And yep! Worth mentioning that 42% of the participants had GI side effects but not bad enough to discontinue. Also no change in BMI, so not thinking they lost muscle mass, but definitely work out when taking GLP-1s!

When Diabetes Drugs Start Treating Headaches: GLP-1 Agonists and the Migraine Connection The story of GLP-1 drugs have had so many plot twists it would almost sound lazy in a medical fiction novel.

GLP-1 drugs started as diabetes meds, became weight-loss blockbusters… and now might prevent migraines by lowering intracranial pressure and calming neuroinflammation.

When endocrinology and neurology collide, weird things happen.
#Migraine #EpiSky #MedSky #GLP1

open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...

#EpiSky #MedSky

The U.S. Life Expectancy Gap Sounds Worse Than It Is and (Hypothetically) Easier to Fix Than You Think America isn’t cursed.

America isn’t dying young because of food dyes or seed oils.
It’s fentanyl, drag-strip roads, and gunfire.

Those three explain much of the 4-year U.S. life expectancy gap vs peers.

Bad news: they kill a lot of people.
Good news: they’re fixable.

open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...

Psychedelics for Anxiety: What the New LSD Trial Does and Doesn’t Change In the Middle Ages, ergot was a curse with a Latin name.

Single-dose lysergide (MM120) beat placebo for GAD and the effect lasted to 12 weeks without trial-provided therapy.
Promising signal ≠ green light. We still need an active placebo, pragmatic eligibility (keep usual meds), and functional outcomes.
#MedSky #lsd

open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...

Body-Snatching, the Doctors’ Riot, and How Cadavers Built American Medicine Why cadavers were scarce in the first place

New post: The Doctors’ Riot (1788). When New Yorkers fought back against body-snatching medicine. Why cadavers were scarce, who got dug up, how “unclaimed” bodies became policy, and what that says about consent today.
#MedSky #EpiSky

theedgeofepidemiology.substack.com/p/body-snatc...

Finding Risk Where History Put It: Founder Effects, Population Bottlenecks, Rare Diseases, and Screening Programs Opening Disclaimer: I’m not a geneticist.

New post: Finding Risk Where History Put It: how founder effects + endogamy make some “rare” diseases locally common, and why community-led screening works. SLSJ as model; South Asia + NYC for scale/equity. Corrections more than welcome.
#EpiSky
theedgeofepidemiology.substack.com/p/finding-ri...

Infectious Diseases on the Move (2025): How Warmer Weather and Urbanicity are Shifting Risks Why ranges change

New post: how warmer weather and urban life are shifting mosquito, tick, and sandfly risk in 2025. maps, mechanisms, and what to do this week.
#EpiSky #MedSky #InfectiousDiseases
theedgeofepidemiology.substack.com/p/infectious...