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Dead soldiers' teeth reveal diseases that doomed Napoleon's army
https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/dna-reveals-real-killers-brought-down-napoleons-army https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/dna-reveals-real-killers-b...
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)01247-3 https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)...
- mitchbob 1y agohttps://archive.ph/EoayR https://archive.ph/EoayR
- saaspirant 1y ago>Rather than the typhus pathogen, the team found traces of Salmonella enterica and Borrelia recurrentis, both of which can trigger symptoms such as high fever, fatigue and digestive problems.
- readthenotes1 1y ago"one that would see his army decimated by cold, hunger and disease." 2 things: A)decimated means 1 in 10, not 9 in 10. B) according to the wiki article, Napoleon had already lost 75% of his initial fighting force by the time he got to Moscow, before the withdrawal. I am not sure an article on biology should include much history--I would certainly hope it did a better job on the biology...
- cenamus 1y agoLook in any dictionary and you'll find that that decimate means to devastate aswell. Language is what people speak not what people proscribe in books or the internet.
- tgv 1y agoIf frequency of use is an argument, one could argue that to decimate might not even be a word.
- kaechle 1y agoCorrect. To decimate is the infinitive form of the verb decimate.
- card_zero 1y agoPrescribe, and it's both of these things.
- jjallen 1y agoExactly. If it is used a certain way by enough people, that is also an accepted definition. Dictionaries lag actual speech and language I suppose.
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago> If it is used a certain way by enough people, that is also an accepted definition. This mentality seems to be prevalent in the USA, in Germany, on the opposite, many people see this topic differently - just because a lot of people use a certain word/term wrong does not make it right.
- cenamus 1y agoAnd it annoys me endlessly. People can't let go of the genitive, even if it's dead in loads of dialects. If people knew how many words were just "made up" in the last couple centuries to match the vocabulary of Latin or French... they'd lose their mind
- steppi 1y agoFrom https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/decimate https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/decimate Decimate is a word that often raises hackles, at least those belonging to a small but committed group of logophiles who feel that it is commonly misused. The issue that they have with the decline and fall of the word decimate is that once upon a time in ancient Rome it had a very singular meaning: “to select by lot and kill every tenth man of a military unit.” However, many words in English descended from Latin have changed and/or expanded their meanings in their travels. For example, we no longer think of sinister as meaning “on the left side,” and delicious can describe things both tasty and delightful. Was the “to kill every tenth man” meaning the original use of decimate in English? Yes, but not by much. It took only a few decades for decimate to acquire its broader, familiar meaning of “to severely damage or destroy,” which has been employed steadily since the 17th century.
- mathgradthrow 1y agoThe more language is allowed to drift, the harder it becomes to read old language. I think this is a particularly silly case, but in general, the complaint that people are misusing words shouldn't be met with "It's impossible to misuse words", which this argument implicitly is.
- ciupicri 1y agoWhich language, Latin or English? Who says that in English it needs to have the same meaning as in Latin? Heck, I've reminded about false friends. For example library ("librărie") in Romanian is the place where you buy books, not rent them.
- card_zero 1y agoMy particular thing is to avoid Latin plurals in English, but I'm never sure how far to take it. Definitely forums, but axises is possibly annoying.
- soared 1y agoNo one allows or disallows language to drift, there are no language enforcers. This argument is not “it’s impossible” but rather it’s pedantic to claim a word is misused, when it’s been used this way for hundreds of years and so the original definition is no longer applicable.
- MontyCarloHall 1y agoYou are figuratively killing me with your literalism.
- hollerith 1y agoThese days some would've written, "you are literally killing me . . ." (which I find deplorable).
- ggambetta 1y agoAnd someone would have replied "I could care less" (incorrectly implying they do care, even if it's a little bit) :(
- hollerith 1y agoI don't mind that one because it does not risk destroying the usefulness of a previously useful unambiguous word.
- kaechle 1y agoUsing "literally" figuratively or, more precisely, as a hyperbolic intensifier [0], is a tradition employed by notable English writers who lived and died long before you were born. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literally https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literally
- hunterpayne 1y agoLiterally, anytime someone uses the term decimate, I assume they don't actually know what it means unless they explicitly state that they do.
- Jedd 1y agoYes, that phrase stuck out to me also. Apologists for language attrition will assert that converging language into a handful of very simple words is doubleplusgood, and we should embrace the dumbification because that's 'just how languages work'. But for a historical article, I did expect a slightly more nuanced take.
- soared 1y agoWhy is this new word “dumbification” and not “smartification”?
- purple_basilisk 1y agoCheck out the perfect set of teeth on the skull of the soldier shown in the article. Amazing how human dental health has changed since then.
- torben-friis 1y agoWe’re talking about a foot soldier on Napoleon’s army, easy to keep a good set considering he could be 18-25.
- hermitcrab 1y agoAnd probably with limited access to sugar.
- boomboomsubban 1y agoProbably, cane sugar was unavailable due to blockades and the Napoleonic expansion of beet sugar was only just starting.
- bluedino 1y agoDue to "softer" diets and all the sugar, right?
- travisjungroth 1y agoHarder diets were more common in ancient humans, and straighten teeth in childhood. I don’t know what the diet was like in 1800.
- georgeburdell 1y agoDo you have any proof? A doctor once mentioned this to me, but then I talked to an orthodontist and he called it BS
- 1y ago
- EugeneOZ 1y agoExamples from 13 soldiers out of 500,000 — very representative, indeed.
- codedokode 1y agoIt is interesting that although Napoleon captured Moscow, the capital at that time was in Saint-Petersburg. Why didn't he go to the capital? This painting depicts Napoleon hopelessly waiting for a delegation from Russian Emperor with burning city in the background [1]. [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Napoleon_in_burning_Moscow_-_Adam_Albrecht_(1841).jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Napoleon_in_burning_...
- zemptime 1y agoOne theory I've heard for this, and sorry I don't remember the source, is that Napoleon suspected if he truly did take down the Russian royalty then he expected the rest of European royalty to unite and attack attack him.
- codedokode 1y agoAs I remember, after French revolution, there were coalitions of foreign monarchies with the goal of punishing France [1]. Also what surprises me, after years of several revolutions and chaos in France, how could Napoleon gather such a large army. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_First_Coalition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_First_Coalition
- itsnowandnever 1y agohe essentially invented the modern concept of conscription. there were press gangs and conscription-like things all through history but for the most part soldiers were professionals
- littlestymaar 1y agoHe didn't invent it, the revolutionary government did and Bonaparte then inherited a massive experimented army after the French Republic having been at war for a decade when he took power.
- littlestymaar 1y ago
- inflames123 1y ago[flagged]
- lovegrenoble 1y agoGreat day Borodin We are brotherly feasts commemorating, firmly: “Were the tribes, Disaster threatening Russia; Not all eh Europe there was? Whose star led her!.. But we began to train hard pyatoyu And chest took the pressure tribes, obedient to the will of the proud, And is was an unequal dispute. And what? a disastrous escape, kichas, they have forgotten now; Lost Russian bayonet and snow, Pogrebshy their glory in the desert. Familiar feast beckons them again - Chmielna for them Slavyanov blood; But it will be hard for a hangover; But guests will long dream on close, cold Novosel, Under the northern cereal fields!
- codedokode 1y agoIt seems that computer translation is not good enough to parse Pushkin's poems yet. I tried ChatGPT, the translation is at least readable, but written in a dumbed down language. Yours is not even readable.
- ciupicri 1y agoWhy would would use ChatGPT or any other kind of automated translation for a poem of famous poet who's probably been already translated in several languages including English?
- jonplackett 1y ago> Salmonella enterica is a bacterium that causes enteric or paratyphoid fever and is acquired by ingesting contaminated food or water. > Borrelia recurrentis is a bacterium that causes relapsing fever, which is transmitted by body lice. Saved you a click
- floam 1y agoHow did you save me a click? Those bits were in this article. The guy that located the original report saved me some time. You could only save somebody time if they skipped the content and started doing comments on HN anyhow, but that’s not all the information either, just a couple key points.
- gubicle 1y ago> You could only save somebody time if they skipped the content and started doing comments on HN anyhow as is customary
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- codedokode 1y agoIt is also interesting that Russian army officers could talk to French without a translator, because Napoleon invasion happened in the period of "westernization", started by Peter the Great. The buildings were built in a Western style, calendar was changed to European, government, army and fleet were reformed, noblemen were required to shave their traditional beards, wear western-style clothes, used French language, and danced to classical Western music in events like balls and fought duels.
- username332211 1y agoIt's a lot less interesting once you look trough the names of senior Russian officers - de Tolly, Bagration, von Benningsen, Wittgenstein, Osterman-Tolstoy. One begins to suspect that the reason Kutuzov replaced Barkley was for a sort of reverse-DEI reasons.
- codedokode 1y agoI remember reading one of Peter the Great's orders regarding creating 10 new units in the army. Out of names of the commanders only 3-4 were Russian. So hiring foreign talent was also part of westernization.
- vitus 1y agoAnd if you look at the people behind those names, you'll find that most of them were either born in the Russian Empire or moved there at a young age. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Andreas_Barclay_de_Tolly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Andreas_Barclay_de_Tol... - moved to St Petersburg around the age of 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Bagration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Bagration - born in Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wittgenstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wittgenstein - born near Kyiv https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Ivanovich_Ostermann-Tolstoy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Ivanovich_Ostermann-... - part of Russian nobility; the Ostermann name came from his great-uncles.
- smogcutter 1y agoTo add - there’s also an Austrian general named O’Reilly, and a famously subpar Macdonald for the French. The French at the time were busy inventing nationalism. Someone suitably aristocratic could find a place as an officer basically anywhere.
- gadders 1y agoWe already know who brought down Napoleon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe_(TV_series)
- adiabatichottub 1y agoWith no small amount of help from Capt. John "Lucky Jack" Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin.