The Importance of case studies in the study of ancient diseases and the fight against biomedical fake news: a set of cases to make a point

Abstract

This article offers a brief overview of the potential represented by palaeopathology both for the study of ancient diseases and for countering pseudoscience. To achieve this goal, it summarises a set of notable cases studied, or contributed to, by the authors of this paper. Moreover, the importance of the so-called “indirect sources” as complementary to the traditional palaeopathological ones is stressed.