Overview
- An Institut Pasteur–led study in Current Biology analyzed dental pulp from 13 soldiers recovered in a 2001 Vilnius mass grave.
- Researchers detected Salmonella enterica consistent with paratyphoid in four individuals and Borrelia recurrentis linked to louse-borne relapsing fever in one, possibly two.
- The metagenomic approach did not find typhus in these samples, contrasting with a 2006 study from the same cemetery that identified DNA from typhus and trench fever.
- The findings support a multifactorial picture of mortality involving extreme cold, starvation, exhaustion and multiple infectious diseases described in contemporary accounts.
- The authors caution that the sample size is small and urge broader sequencing across more remains and sites to clarify the full disease spectrum of the 1812 retreat.