The Laughing Death: Unraveling the Mystery of Kuru

By Josh Powell

This Story Appeared In Powell’s LinkedIn Newsletter.

By Josh Powell

Picture this: It’s the 1930s, and Australian gold prospectors are trekking through the remote highlands of Papua New Guinea when they make an astonishing discovery. Hidden away from the modern world, nearly a million people have been living in complete isolation, their existence unknown to outsiders until this moment.

Shirley Lindenbaum’s study in the early 1960s of the origins and transmission of kuru among the Fore people of the eastern highlands of New Guinea is one of the earliest examples of an explicitly medical anthropology.

Shirley Lindenbaum’s study in the early 1960s of the origins and transmission of kuru among the Fore people of the eastern highlands of New Guinea is one of the earliest examples of an explicitly medical anthropology.

Fast forward two decades. Scientists venture into these isolated villages and stumble upon something chilling within the Fore tribe — a mysterious disease that would baffle medical…