GREECE: Genetic analysis indicates that typhoid fever - not smallpox, anthrax or measles - caused the great epidemic of Athens that broke out in 430BC and killed a third of the city, ending the golden age of Athenian dominance of the ancient world.
Greek scientists writing in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases said they concluded that typhoid had caused the plague by studying DNA recovered from the teeth of skeletal remains in an ancient mass-burial pit.
The pit has more than five layers of skeletons buried in a precise manner, topped with bodies "virtually heaped one upon the other", suggesting a quick burial in difficult conditions.
After extracting the trace dental DNA, the researchers used new techniques to amplify and compare it with genetic sequences from diseases such as plague, typhus, anthrax, tuberculosis and cat-scratch disease. They found a match with typhoid fever.
The great plague occurred in the first years of the Peloponnesian War, which eventually led to Sparta's defeat of Athens.
At the time, Athens was surrounded on land by Spartans and survived only because its navy controlled the sea through the port of Piraeus. The city's great leader, Pericles, died in the epidemic.
In his famous history of that war, Thucydides described the plague as including fever, rash and diarrhoea. All are consistent with typhoid fever, which is spread by contaminated water and food.
The lead author, Manolis J. Papagrigorakis of the University of Athens, said the research showed how useful the study of infectious disease could be in understanding and unravelling "the most debated enigmas in medical history".
- (LA Times-Washington Post Service)