5 Key Takeaways

• 1

  Researchers identified genetic traces of paratyphoid fever and relapsing fever in soldiers from Napoleon's army during the 1812 retreat.

• 2

  The study suggests these infections contributed to the collapse of the Grande Armée, which lost hundreds of thousands to illness and exposure.

• 3

  Ancient DNA was extracted from teeth of 13 soldiers in a mass grave in Vilnius, confirming the presence of Salmonella enterica and Borrelia recurrentis.

• 4

  Historical accounts describe symptoms consistent with paratyphoid infection, complicating clinical differentiation from other diseases like typhus.

• 5

  The findings underscore the importance of ancient DNA analysis in understanding historical disease outbreaks and their impacts.