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DNA Confirms Cause of 1665 London's Great Plague (bbc.com)
Slashdot reader JThaddeus writes: The BBC reports that a 17th-century mass grave uncovered in London confirms the identity of the bacteria responsible for the Great Plague of 1665-1666. "Testing in Germany confirmed the presence of DNA from the Yersinia pestis bacterium -- the agent that causes bubonic plague -- rather than another pathogen." The grave contains approximately 3,500 skeletons... Teeth were removed from some of the skulls, and their pulp tested at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. Positive results were found in 5 of 20 individuals tested.
"To reassure anyone worried whether plague bacterium was released from the excavation work or scientific analysis, it doesn't survive in the ground," reports the BBC. The 3,500 graves represent roughly 3.5% of London's 100,000 victims of the Great Plague -- one-quarter of the city's entire population.
"To reassure anyone worried whether plague bacterium was released from the excavation work or scientific analysis, it doesn't survive in the ground," reports the BBC. The 3,500 graves represent roughly 3.5% of London's 100,000 victims of the Great Plague -- one-quarter of the city's entire population.
so Londoners got off easy this time.
The summary suggests that some "what terror have you unleashed?!" doomsday scenario could unfold with Yersinia Pestis being resurrected from extinction... but that's impossible. Yersinia Pestis still exists and causes about a dozen cases of bubonic plague annually, nowadays. It's easily treated with antibiotics, and those of European descent are thought to be resistant to it. If I recall my Wikipedia correctly.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
The thing to reassure people of is the fact the bubonic plague is treatable now unlike back then not that it can't live in the ground as that is a fairly pointless reassurance as the bacteria is still very much alive and well in the world. It still occasionally raises its head with outbreaks and results in 100+ deaths a year.
Smallpox is a real threat, thanks to climate change: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3741091/Could-SMALLPOX-return-grave-Deadly-disease-risk-permafrost-thaws-near-Russian-village-victims-buried-warn-scientists.html
At what point are we allowed to dig up graves?
After 100 years? 200 years?
There are some massive cemeteries near me on land that could be repurposed rather than wasted.
Clearly a hoax. English people don't have teeth due to socialised nanny-state medicine.
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roman_mir
What about the other 75%? Is it a problem with the testing instrument or was there something else?
I called it a mighty Sperm Whale, she called it Finding Nemo.
"The 3,500 graves represent roughly 3.5% of London's 100,000 victims of the Great Plague"
If there were 100,000 victims, then 3,500 graves is *exactly* 3.5% of the total.
Perhaps the author meant to say "The 3,500 graves represent 3.5% of London's estimated 100,000 victims of the Great Plague."
The wife and I just finished watching a TV show (Smithsonian Channel) all about that excavation at the Crossrail site. The show repeatedly insisted this mass grave was from the 1563 plague, where approximately 60% of the city's 60,000 inhabitants died. They remarked on how orderly and well managed the mass burials were, mostly in long trenches, probably no coffins, but certainly not some huge charnel pit. The show also remarked how modern scientists used the teeth to find the Yersinia pestis bacterium, confirming the plague was bubonic. They also discussed the two different methods of transfer: the classic one via fleas on rats, but the much faster means with the pneumococcal plague version (lung infection, bacteria transferred by air or spray).
Certainly there was a 17th Century plague, but there were many others.
As always, it surprised me at how DEEP those skeletons were discovered. It must have been easily 3 or 4 meters down (discovered during an excavation for a new subway system). No one dug graves or trenches that deeply, so one wonders how all that soil got built up on top, especially in the middle of a city (and a park or courtyard where there was no building).
It takes a special kind of filthsucker* to dehumanize and hate those who promote some superstitions and fact-free beliefs while promoting and demanding respect for your own.
Dead people are gone. Their remains are just organic matter and have no special significance or value except in your twisted death-worshiping type of mind. Free yourself from the religion-based brainwashing and propaganda.
If you are really worked up about the imaginary risk from centuries-old bodies promote cremation for all. More efficient anyway.
*by the way, cocksuckers are wonderful people who bring pleasure to others. Please stop denigrating valuable humans based on your own petty, close-minded, bigoted beliefs.
This is London we're talking about. It's lucky that 25% still had real teeth.
Just for starters : they were looking at microbe fragments preserved in teeth - because these are some of the most decay-resistant bits of the entire body. But for 1665 I wouldn't be astonished if most people who went into the ground for any reason had either badly-eroded teeth (grit in bread) or badly-rotted teeth (caries), or just plain no teeth. If the enamel from a tooth had worn off in life to expose the dentine or tooth pulp, then any bacteria found in there could have come into the tooth at some time post burial. Likewise if there were a caries pit in the tooth, it's a potential entry point for post-mortem bacteria.
1 in 4 bodies yielding usable results doesn't sound at all bad to me. Incidentally, euipment failure wouldn't be an issue. You do the fieldwork one month. 6 months later, you get to "doing" the skeletons and decide which ones have teeth suitable for DNA work. Then you apply for a grant for the DNA work - if it's granted, you cut the teeth decided upon and extract your samples. Put them in liquid nitrogen while you're working on the other teeth in the sample. Then send them off to who-ever is doing your testing. If their equipment is having a bad hair day, then it might take 3 months to get the results instead of 2 months, or they farm it out to another lab.
They're not walking around with a Tricorder and a guy in a red shirt, zapping a bone sticking out of the mud and saying "Yersinia pestis!"
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"