Aetiology

Aetiology :Discussing causes, origins, evolution, and implications of disease and other phenomena.

One historical event that has been the subject of much speculation over the decades has been the Plague of Athens, a mysterious outbreak that is thought to have changed the direction of the Peloponnesian War, and for which the cause still remains uncertain.

This plague has been attributed to bubonic plague, toxic shock syndrome and/or necrotizing fasciitis due to Streptococcus pyogenes or Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella, yellow fever, malaria, Ebola, influenza, and smallpox, to name just a few. Typhus seems to fit the description best, but it's likely that a cause will never be known with certainty.

So, what good does this do us? The bodies are almost 2500 years old; surely they can't provide a testable sample. Right? Luckily, people cleverer than I have figured out a way to search for microbial DNA in ancient samples: via dental pulp. This is used because it's well-protected, and generally considered to be free of contamination (until you break open the tooth, that is). That's what they did in this study as well, using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to search for DNA from Yersinia pestis, typhus, anthrax, tuberculosis, cowpox, and cat-scratch disease (Bartonella henselae) in addition to S. enterica. But, there are a number of problems with the study.