[relaytheurgency]

My father in law developed a nasty necrotic wound that everyone assumed was a brown recluse bite. But it kept getting worse and worse no matter what treatment options they tried. Turned out he had leishmaniasis. Of course no one considered that because they were blinded by the common explanation.

Now, you could argue that maybe had the doctors known more about leishmaniasis he would have received a diagnosis faster. However, I imagine the situation played out about as well as one should hope. Certainly in Bolivia (where he picked up the disease) they should be more aware of the common causes of things than the uncommon. They should not be inspecting for brown recluse bites when there are rarely any just as we should not look at every necrotizing wound and investigate it as an uncommon case of leishmaniasis.