4 ms·

Remains of 17th century bishop support Neolithic emergence of tuberculosis

65 points by benbreen 6y ago

Ericson2314 6y ago
Time to add to the TODO lists for the second edition of "Against the Grain", I guess.
hinkley 6y ago
I recall being fairly surprised at one point to learn that TB and leprosy were things that many people had an innate immunity to. You think about all of those nurses, nuns and priestesses who took care of people with chronic illnesses in an era before we really understood infectious diseases. You were playing a single round of russian roulette with your own health, but your odds were good enough that we could ascribe your outcome to fate or gods. It often makes me wonder if the disease is maladapted or if they are truly ancient and most of us are descendants of the survivors.
- rjsw 6y ago
  We didn't help things by preventing immunity being passed on to future generations, not many nuns have children.
  - lgeorget 6y ago
    Not that I have formation or experience in the field but my understanding was that only antibodies were passed from the mother to the children, not lymphocytes or immunity memory. But now that I google it, there is a rather new body of research about the genetic and epigenetic component of immunity. Like https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27102489/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27102489/ for example. What an exciting time to be alive.
    - namenotrequired 6y ago
      I interpreted the GP's words "innate immunity" as meaning "genetic". Was I wrong?
- dhosek 6y ago
  If you're an anthropomorphized pathogen, you do not want to kill your host. Ideally you don't even want your host to get sick. You want your host to be able to survive and spread your descendants as widely as possible. This is why a lot of fictional descriptions of pandemics are unrealistic—something with a severe lethality rate has a hard time spreading (see, for example, Ebola which is highly contagious and fatal, but tends not to spread far from its animal reservoirs). With TB what happens is that the disease enters into an equilibrium state where the pathogen is able to survive in the host for years. There's been a lot of adaptation on both sides. There's still debate about whether TB was introduced to the Americas by Europeans or not, but it does have a disproportionately bad impact on Native American populations that lead me (uneducatedly) to think that it likely was introduced.
- gerdesj 6y ago
  I am a counter example or at least not part of your "most" group! My dad's birth mother died of TB in the early 1950s. TB doesn't always kill before you've handed down your genes and it doesn't always kill either, nor does everyone contract it. By the way, she was a healthy, vigorous woman struck down in her prime. She lived in a reasonably affluent part of southern England, well away from the worst pollution but not too rural and the NHS was up and running. TB is a right bugger and can work very quickly. At least TB is mostly curable nowadays: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/tuberculosis-tb/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/tuberculosis-tb/ When it comes to disease, do not let your guard down.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  People pretty much are still immune to leprosy: > It is estimated that more than 95% of people who are infected with Mycobacterium leprae do not develop leprosy because their immune system fights off the infection. People who develop leprosy may have genes that make them susceptible to the infection once they are exposed. [0] Leprosy is rare [1], and fairly hard to transmit. You have to have either had close contact with someone with the disease, or have handled an armadillo [2] to contract leprosy. It is impossible to culture in a lab [3] because it's so well adapted to living inside a human cell [ibid]. And, it's in the same genus as the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. If anything, Mycobacterium leprae is extremely well adapted to survival and propagation, because it doesn't make us sick very often, progresses slowly [4], and, importantly, doesn't kill us. --- [0]: https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/infections/tuberculosis-and-related-infections/leprosy https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/infections/tuberculosis-an... [1]: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/leprosy https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/leprosy: "Elimination of leprosy as public health problem (defined as a registered prevalence of less than 1 case per 10 000 population) was achieved globally in 2000." [2]: https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/a-z/leprosy-risk https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/a-z/leprosy-risk lists "[living] in a country where leprosy is more common, such as India, Brazil, China, Indonesia, or parts of Africa," along with hanging out with armadillos as the only real risk factors for someone in the US. [3]: https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Host_Dependency_of_Mycobacterium_leprae https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Host_Dependency_of_... [4]: https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/guide/leprosy-symptoms-treatments-history#1 https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/guide/lep... says "It usually takes about 3 to 5 years for symptoms to appear after coming into contact with the leprosy-causing bacteria. Some people do not develop symptoms until 20 years later."
acqq 6y ago
> passed away in the winter of 1679 > “Discovery of the Bishop’s lung calcification gave us the opportunity to revisit the question of tuberculosis emergence with data from an ancient European” Their definition of "ancient" is obviously different than mine: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/srd3e/how_old_does_something_have_to_be_to_be/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/srd3e/how_ol... I don't know if it's just "lost in translation", something specific to analysis of old DNA or something else.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  The meaning of "ancient" is always sensitive to context. "Ancient Greece" is probably around 500 BC. (More broadly, 700 BC forward.) By 500 BC, Egypt is over; it's been conquered by Persia. (It will experience a renaissance of sorts later, but will not regain self rule until the 20th century.) "New Kingdom" Egypt ends in the 11th century BC. There were Greeks at that time, but we call them "Mycenaean Greeks" - "Ancient Greeks" would refer to people from a much later period. The Chinese are happy to refer to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) as "ancient" (古). Obviously there's a world of difference between that and the Spring and Autumn period (771-476), but if you need to know exactly how old whatever you're talking about is, you'll just use more specific terminology.
  - rootsudo 6y ago
    Using a Palm Pilot is ancient in comparison to todays' Iphone 11. Does that count?
frereubu 6y ago
I did a double-take at the mention of seals in the phrase "...not only were the ancient strains unexpectedly related to those circulating in present-day seals, but comparison against a large number of human strains..." and wondered whether it was an autocorrect mistake. But apparently not: "Seals brought TB to Americas" https://www.nature.com/news/seals-brought-tb-to-americas-1.15748 https://www.nature.com/news/seals-brought-tb-to-americas-1.1...

65 points by benbreen 6y ago

Time to add to the TODO lists for the second edition of "Against the Grain", I guess.

I recall being fairly surprised at one point to learn that TB and leprosy were things that many people had an innate immunity to. You think about all of those nurses, nuns and priestesses who took care of people with chronic illnesses in an era before we really understood infectious diseases. You were playing a single round of russian roulette with your own health, but your odds were good enough that we could ascribe your outcome to fate or gods. It often makes me wonder if the disease is maladapted or if they are truly ancient and most of us are descendants of the survivors.

rjsw 6y ago
We didn't help things by preventing immunity being passed on to future generations, not many nuns have children.
- lgeorget 6y ago
  Not that I have formation or experience in the field but my understanding was that only antibodies were passed from the mother to the children, not lymphocytes or immunity memory. But now that I google it, there is a rather new body of research about the genetic and epigenetic component of immunity. Like https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27102489/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27102489/ for example. What an exciting time to be alive.
  - namenotrequired 6y ago
    I interpreted the GP's words "innate immunity" as meaning "genetic". Was I wrong?
dhosek 6y ago
If you're an anthropomorphized pathogen, you do not want to kill your host. Ideally you don't even want your host to get sick. You want your host to be able to survive and spread your descendants as widely as possible. This is why a lot of fictional descriptions of pandemics are unrealistic—something with a severe lethality rate has a hard time spreading (see, for example, Ebola which is highly contagious and fatal, but tends not to spread far from its animal reservoirs). With TB what happens is that the disease enters into an equilibrium state where the pathogen is able to survive in the host for years. There's been a lot of adaptation on both sides. There's still debate about whether TB was introduced to the Americas by Europeans or not, but it does have a disproportionately bad impact on Native American populations that lead me (uneducatedly) to think that it likely was introduced.
gerdesj 6y ago
I am a counter example or at least not part of your "most" group! My dad's birth mother died of TB in the early 1950s. TB doesn't always kill before you've handed down your genes and it doesn't always kill either, nor does everyone contract it. By the way, she was a healthy, vigorous woman struck down in her prime. She lived in a reasonably affluent part of southern England, well away from the worst pollution but not too rural and the NHS was up and running. TB is a right bugger and can work very quickly. At least TB is mostly curable nowadays: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/tuberculosis-tb/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/tuberculosis-tb/ When it comes to disease, do not let your guard down.
pmiller2 6y ago
People pretty much are still immune to leprosy: > It is estimated that more than 95% of people who are infected with Mycobacterium leprae do not develop leprosy because their immune system fights off the infection. People who develop leprosy may have genes that make them susceptible to the infection once they are exposed. [0] Leprosy is rare [1], and fairly hard to transmit. You have to have either had close contact with someone with the disease, or have handled an armadillo [2] to contract leprosy. It is impossible to culture in a lab [3] because it's so well adapted to living inside a human cell [ibid]. And, it's in the same genus as the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. If anything, Mycobacterium leprae is extremely well adapted to survival and propagation, because it doesn't make us sick very often, progresses slowly [4], and, importantly, doesn't kill us. --- [0]: https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/infections/tuberculosis-and-related-infections/leprosy https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/infections/tuberculosis-an... [1]: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/leprosy https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/leprosy: "Elimination of leprosy as public health problem (defined as a registered prevalence of less than 1 case per 10 000 population) was achieved globally in 2000." [2]: https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/a-z/leprosy-risk https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/a-z/leprosy-risk lists "[living] in a country where leprosy is more common, such as India, Brazil, China, Indonesia, or parts of Africa," along with hanging out with armadillos as the only real risk factors for someone in the US. [3]: https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Host_Dependency_of_Mycobacterium_leprae https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Host_Dependency_of_... [4]: https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/guide/leprosy-symptoms-treatments-history#1 https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/guide/lep... says "It usually takes about 3 to 5 years for symptoms to appear after coming into contact with the leprosy-causing bacteria. Some people do not develop symptoms until 20 years later."

acqq 6y ago

> passed away in the winter of 1679 > “Discovery of the Bishop’s lung calcification gave us the opportunity to revisit the question of tuberculosis emergence with data from an ancient European” Their definition of "ancient" is obviously different than mine: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/srd3e/how_old_does_something_have_to_be_to_be/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/srd3e/how_ol... I don't know if it's just "lost in translation", something specific to analysis of old DNA or something else.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
The meaning of "ancient" is always sensitive to context. "Ancient Greece" is probably around 500 BC. (More broadly, 700 BC forward.) By 500 BC, Egypt is over; it's been conquered by Persia. (It will experience a renaissance of sorts later, but will not regain self rule until the 20th century.) "New Kingdom" Egypt ends in the 11th century BC. There were Greeks at that time, but we call them "Mycenaean Greeks" - "Ancient Greeks" would refer to people from a much later period. The Chinese are happy to refer to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) as "ancient" (古). Obviously there's a world of difference between that and the Spring and Autumn period (771-476), but if you need to know exactly how old whatever you're talking about is, you'll just use more specific terminology.
- rootsudo 6y ago
  Using a Palm Pilot is ancient in comparison to todays' Iphone 11. Does that count?

frereubu 6y ago

I did a double-take at the mention of seals in the phrase "...not only were the ancient strains unexpectedly related to those circulating in present-day seals, but comparison against a large number of human strains..." and wondered whether it was an autocorrect mistake. But apparently not: "Seals brought TB to Americas" https://www.nature.com/news/seals-brought-tb-to-americas-1.15748 https://www.nature.com/news/seals-brought-tb-to-americas-1.1...