Dracunculiasis has been a recognized disease for thousands of years:
Guinea worm has been found in calcified Egyptian mummies.[6]
An Old Testament description of "fiery serpents" may have been referring to Guinea Worm: "And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died." (Numbers 21:4–9).[5]
The 2nd century BC, Greek writer Agatharchides, described this affliction as being endemic amongst certain nomads in what is now Sudan and along the Red Sea.[5]
The traditional (and still current) method of extracting guinea worm by twisting the worm around a stick may have inspired the rod of Asclepius, a symbol of medicine since Ancient Greek times which portrays a snake winding around a staff[36].
The unusually high incidence of dracunculiasis in the city of Medina led to it being included in part of the disease's scientific name "medinensis." A similar high incidence along the Guinea coast of West Africa gave the disease its more commonly used name.[5] Guinea worm is no longer endemic in either location.
In modern times, the first to describe dracunculiasis and its pathogenesis was the Bulgarian physician Hristo Stambolski, during his exile in Yemen (1877–1878).[37] His theory was that the cause was infected water which people were drinking.
