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Previous Volume 357:949-950 August 30, 2007 Number 9

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By Philip A. Mackowiak. 350 pp., illustrated. Philadelphia, American College of Physicians, 2007. $29.95. ISBN 978-1-930513-89-1.

Christopher Columbus returned to Portugal from his epic sea voyage with a cabin full of parrots. Perhaps one of them was infected with the bacterium Chlamydia psittaci and passed it on to Columbus, causing the reactive arthritis that afflicted the explorer from 1493 onward. If Columbus had been a carrier of the HLA-B27 cell-surface protein, he would have been susceptible to the disease. Not only would HLA-B27 account for the arthritis, but it might also reveal the location of Columbus's origin. At least, that is what Philip Mackowiak, the author of this fascinating book, believes, and he comes up with . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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