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Fri 16 Dec, 2005 10:50 am
Quote:MARSEILLE, France (UPI) -- University of the Mediterranean scientists have found evidence of typhus and trench fever in pulp from the teeth of Napoleonic soldiers.
Dr. Dadier Raoultwho used the dental pulp from the soldiers who died during Napoleon`s disastrous retreat from Russia in 1812. He found DNA evidence that epidemic typhus and trench fever ran rampant among the French Grand Army.
Raoultwho said his study identifies the specific species of louse-borne pathogens that were a major cause of death among the retreating soldiers.
Napoleon marched into Russia during the summer of 1812 with a half-million soldiers. Only a few thousand survived the war, weather and disease.
Construction work in 2001 unearthed a grave containing between 2,000 and 3,000 corpses. Raoult and colleagues identified body segments of five lice in a forensic excavation of two kilograms of earth containing fragments of bone and remnants of clothing.
Three of the lice carried DNA from the disease commonly known as trench fever, which afflicted many soldiers during World War I. Other remains had DNA containing the organism that causes epidemic typhus.
The study appears in the Jan. 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases and is available online.
Full Press Release by the
The Journal of Infectious Diseases
Quote:New Study Identifies Louse-Borne Diseases That Ravaged Napoleon's Army
Using dental pulp extracted from the teeth of soldiers who died during Napoleon's disastrous retreat through Russia in 1812, a new study finds DNA evidence that epidemic typhus and trench fever ran rampant among the French Grand Army. The study, published in the Jan. 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online, identifies the specific species of louse-borne pathogens that were a major cause of death among the remains of the retreating army.
Napoleon marched into Russia in the summer of 1812 with a half-million soldiers. Only a few thousand staggered out again, victims of war, weather, and disease. Twenty-five thousand arrived in Vilnius that winter, but only 3,000 lived to continue the retreat. The dead were buried in mass graves.
Construction work in 2001 unearthed one such grave, containing between 2,000 and 3,000 corpses. Didier Raoult, MD, PhD, from the Université de la Méditerranée in Marseille, France, and colleagues identified body segments of five lice in a forensic excavation of two kilograms of earth containing fragments of bone and remnants of clothing. Three of the lice carried DNA from Bartonella quintana, which causes the disease commonly known as trench fever, which afflicted many soldiers in World War I.
The team analyzed dental pulp from 72 teeth, taken from the remains of 35 soldiers. Dental pulp from seven soldiers contained DNA from B. quintana, and pulp from three soldiers contained DNA from Rickettsia prowazakii, which causes epidemic typhus. Testing for other organisms gave negative results, and other appropriate controls were negative.
In all, 29 percent of the soldiers tested had evidence of either R. prowazkii or B. quintana infection, suggesting that louse-born diseases such as typhus and trench fever may have been a major factor contributing to Napoleon's retreat from Russia. The authors conclude that searching for DNA of infectious agents in dental pulp may become an important tool for investigating the history of communicable diseases.
Quote:Evidence for Louse-Transmitted Diseases in Soldiers of Napoleon's Grand Army in Vilnius
Didier Raoult,1 Olivier Dutour,2 Linda Houhamdi,1 Rimantas Jankauskas,3 Pierre-Edouard Fournier,1 Yann Ardagna,2 Michel Drancourt,1 Michel Signoli,2 Vu Dang La,1 Yves Macia,2 and Gérard Aboudharam1
1Unité des Rickettsies, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Unité Mixte de Recherche (UMR) 6020 and 2Unité d'Anthropologie, CNRS UMR 6578, Université de la Méditerranée, Faculté de Médecine, Marseille, France; 3Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Medicine, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania
Volume 193(2006), pages 112 - 120
DOI:10.1086/498534
Abstract
Background. Many soldiers in Napoleon's Grand Army died of infectious diseases during its retreat from Russia. Because soldiers were commonly infested with body lice, it has been speculated that louse-borne infectious diseases, such as epidemic typhus (caused by Rickettsia prowazekii), were common.
Methods. We investigated this possibility during recent excavations of a mass grave of Napoleon's soldiers in Vilnius, Lithuania. Segments of 5 body lice, identified morphologically and by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification and sequencing, were found in earth from the grave that also contained fragments of soldiers' uniforms.
Results. DNA of Bartonella quintana (the agent of trench fever) was identified by PCR and sequencing in 3 of the lice. Similarly, PCR and sequencing of dental pulp from the remains of 35 soldiers revealed DNA of B. quintana in 7 soldiers and DNA of R. prowazekii in 3 other soldiers.
Conclusions. Our results show that louse-borne infectious diseases affected nearly one-third of Napoleon's soldiers buried in Vilnius and indicate that these diseases might have been a major factor in the French retreat from Russia.
Received 18 May 2005; accepted 29 July 2005; electronically published 18 November 2005.
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Wow! they basically died from "kooties". All those years in the playgroud we would accuse the geeks of giving us "kooties" and give each other "kootie shots". I guess we were right to be afraid. Maybe only American kids can relate to the "kootie's" thing.
(Actually, I thought they all died from the cold and starvation, good to know the truth.)
That's par for the course blame the defenseless lice.
Thanks for the history course Walter...
I saw a program that looked at information from bones of Custer's army, and Civil War soldiers.
They suggested that life in those times sucked, health wise, with all kinds of nasty chronic conditions at a very young age.
Napoleon's lice are another example of miseery we have, at least temporarily, kissed bye bye to, at least in most western countries...
However, lice (at least head lice) are getting as resistant to the chemicals used to control them as virii and bacteria are.....
Good thread, Walter. It is generally unknown that the standards of hygiene and of medical care in Napoleon's armies was appallingly low. In the era of Louis XIV, French army surgeons had lead the medical world in new anatomical discoveries and the development surgical technique, as well as of post-surgical and post-amputation care. Napoleon, however, ignored the medical services, and they deteriorated to the point that as many men and often more died of wounds after a battle as were killed outright. There is a large body of correspondence addressed to him, beginning with his first campaign in Italy, in which army surgeons plead for more resources, and complain of conditions, but which correspondence seems to have been ignored.
Miss Wabbit, the recent archaeology at the Greasy Grass battlefield (that's what the Amerindians called it, and they won, so they get to name the battle) was interesting to me because it had recently been established that the Seventh Cavalry had been using canned rations, from cans sealed with soft lead solder. As was the case with the Franklin Expedition, it appears that the troopers of the Seventh Cavalry were suffering from low-grade, chronic lead poisoning. A noted symptom of that is dementia. It's not as though Custer needed any help with dementia, but his behavior on the last day, and his final message to Captain Benteen strongly suggest that he had lost all sense of proportion and his grip on reality.
Blimey.
Like poor old what's his name in the Antarctic, and vitamin D poisoning from the dogs' livers!
dlowan wrote:Blimey.
Like poor old what's his name in the Antarctic, and vitamin D poisoning from the dogs' livers!
Removing them didn't exactly improve the health of the huskies either!!
Personally, I'd blame their reliance on cuisine based around heavy, rich sauces and the efforts involved in moving 125 different types of cheese across enemy terrain. Smoking a zillion Gaulioses in the Russian winter would have also added to their problems - not to mention the difficulty adapting from the standard 'baguette' to a flatter, rye-based loaf.
As Napoleon himself said, "An army marches on it's stomache, but it fights with its bowel. And mes soldats - the Russians are full of merde!!".
dlowan wrote:Blimey.
Like poor old what's his name in the Antarctic, and vitamin D poisoning from the dogs' livers!
Now you've got me . . . Scott and Amundson raced for the south pole, and Scott and company froze to death, while Amundson and his boys made it there and back by eating the dogs.
You've opened another can of worms, Miss Wabbit . . .
Damn.
It was vitamin A.
And Mawson:
"Sir Douglas Mawson, the Antarctic explorer whose likeness appears on the Australian $100 bill, was the leader of an ill fated expedition to travel to the South Magnetic Pole by dogsled. His party set out with several teams of sled dogs. An accident caused the loss of the sled with the food supplies into a crevasse. To survive, the party had to eat the remaining dogs. The dog livers were large and healthy looking, so Mawson fed these to his men. They became sicker and eventually died. Mawson, who denied himself any liver so to give them to the men, was the sole survivor. We now know that men died of Vitamin A poisoning, as a result of consuming the dog livers which were very rich in Vitamin A."
An account:
http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/183_11_051205/car10291_fm.html
Mawson is big around here...he was abn Adelaide boy.
I had been taught at university many years ago that a surfeit of Vitamin A was unhealthy--didn't know it could kill people. Those with large amounts of fish in their diets run this risk. When i was taught that in a university biology course, the text alluded to Modeste Mussorgsky, stating that he suffered from too much Vitamin A, and that it induced dementia--the author attributed the composition of A Night on Bald Mountain to the condition. No comment.
Scott took the bulk of his supplies to the most advanced base camp by tractor, and then attempted to proceed the rest of the way in "a dash" with three sleds and the minimum number of dogs--they eventually froze to death. Amundson proceeded from his base camp with many sleds and about 150 dogs (i'll go look for a link), and most of the sleds were loaded with dried fish for the dogs. As the sleds were emptied, the dog teams which were no longer pulling were slaughtered to feed the men and the remaining dogs. Amundson and his men along with two or three dog sleds and their teams returned alive and healthy to the base camp.
I've been misspelling Amundsen's name . . . i make no apology . . .
Roald Amundsen
And . . .
Robert Falcon Scott
Ive heard of vitamin(oops it is A) toxicity from eating Polar Bear liver but not dogs.
Its a possibility.
Thanks Walter, PCR is a technology that depends upon an evolutionary model to work cheaply. because DNA polymerase was very expensive and to do the scads of tests that , like Napoleans lousy army, couldnt be validated because, to isolate the DNA sections that the lab would be interested in would take about 30 expansion trials with new "primers" at each trial. DNA polymerase is destroyed by heat greater than 37C (which is the approximete temp where the process needs to be) , so , by using e coli (Thermus aquatici), a unique coliform that were introduced into and adapted to thermal springs of Yellowstone, weve been able to produce enough heat tolerant DNA polymerase so the sequencing wasnt slowed by lack of primers. Nowadays PCR and automatic gene sequencing is so sweet and quick , that a lab can do about a million sequences a day and without people being involved at every stage.
Today we have the luxury of doing these kinds of forensic projects that , until PCR and auto sequencing and even "lighting up the base pair targets" by laser flouresence we could never have done this project in less than a decade.
We take alot of this stuff for granted and always look at the applications of technology like "ok, done that, whats next?"
There were at least 5 Nobel prizes (that Im aware of) that surround PCR, laser lighting,Autosequencing and other tricks that are key to molecualr genetics. These techniques and equipment made the Human Genome project doable, and the partial sequencing of Neanderthal man, (which drove the major nail into Creationists chests).
Just an aside,
Vitamin A can accumulate in toxic amounts of the liver of any meat eater. Polar bear livers are particularly toxic because polar bears are at the top of the arctic food chain. Seals eat Vitamin rich fish and polar bears eat seals and whoever eateth of the liver of the polar bear risking death.
I'd guess that the toxic dogs were fed on fish or seal meat or both..
In all my life and Ive been in North polar extremes working on Baffin And some of the other islands. I have NEVER EVER had the urge to chow down on some polar bear liver and onions. In fact, I hate all liver. Its about the most disgusting organ ( with the notable exception of the anus itself) that could be partookin.
Farmerman--
You are lucky that you were not born a woman. In the years when I came to puberty, liver was a part of the Curse of Eve--with onions and bacon. Regular helpings of liver build Unconquerable Womanhood.
Since both Mr. Noddys are in your corner of the Men's Lodge on the Question of Liver, I can cook liver for myself every so often and feel delightfully self-indulgent.
By the by, my pit bull won't eat raw liver, but she does enjoy liver, lightly sauteed.
Lambs liver, when sizzled in a frying pan with a couple of rashers of bacon and some onion, and then dolloped onto a plate that contains a heap of mashed potato, is about the nicest pub lunch that one can scoff.
and scoff I do.
noddy, my wife didnt have to go though that , so we can neatly avoid the smell of searing organ meats.
There is one Pa Dutch organ meat , sliced beef heart with onion and potato, that isnt bad, and then chicken gizzards are good.
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