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Originally Posted by Shadywood
Being from Texas, I might be able to help.
Leprosy? It's mostly an old wives tale. Back in the 30's when starving dust bowl folks were catching them to eat (they called them "Hoover Dogs") there was coincidentally a university study to find another animal on the planet that was susceptible to leprosy. The only other animal they could infect with it was the armadillo. So, naturally, there was a rumor of an escaped lab armadillo with leprosy that made the news and now all armadillos supposedly have leprosy. In fact, they may be disgusting to look at but they're just about the least dangerous wild animal there is, since they have no teeth to speak of, they're nearly immune to rabies, and they don't hang out in sewers or live in colonies.
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This is not an old wife's tale.
By Laura Clark
smithsonianmag.com
March 2, 2015
Last week, officials in eastern Florida announced the emergence of three new cases of leprosy—the ancient, highly stigmatized disease once handled by isolation—in the last five months. And two of those cases have been linked to contact with the armored, strangely cute critter endemic to the American south: armadillos.
Armadillos are the only other animals besides humans to host the leprosy bacillus. In 2011, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article formally linking the creature to human leprosy cases—people and armadillos tested in the study both shared the same exact strain of the disease.
How Armadillos Can Spread Leprosy
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| Smithsonian Magazine