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Bubonic plague – also known as the Black Death – is known to have caused devastating epidemics that have affected mankind. In 1347, for example, it was estimated that the disease had killed about one third of the European population.
It was thought that this disease would have been the first of the major plague epidemics. French, Swedish and Danish scientists discovered that an ancestral strain of the same bacteria – Yersinia pestis – had already caused the deaths of people in the Neolithic era.
"Our research revealed what we believe to be the first major pandemic in human history," biologist Nicolás Rascovan, lead author of the study, published in the journal Cell. "This pandemic may have played a role in the important historical events of the time."
Rascovan lists three main evidences of the study. Between 5,700 and 5,1000 years ago – for the history of the world, a short time – many independent strains of Yersinia pestis have diverged and spread throughout Eurasia.
Human beings capable of spreading disease over large geographic areas – as a means of transport on wheels and by animal traction – have also spread to this great region.
The same period coincides with the emergence of the first considered human settlements of
"Thus, for the first time in the history of mankind, there were simultaneously perfect conditions for mankind. occurrence of diseases, In these vast agglomerations, while there was enough technology to extend them rapidly over great distances, "the biologist continues. 9659002] To corroborate these data, archaeological research has revealed that during the same period European Neolithic populations were in decline. "At the same time that the plague appeared and spread, we badume that it played an important role in this process," says Rascovan
. Archeology of the disease
of human fossils of the period. And they came to see a woman who would have lived more than 5,000 years ago, where she is now Sweden and who died at the age of 20 from an ancestral strain of Plague. This indicates that it is the genetic origin of Yersinia pestis.
"The type of badysis that we have done allows us to go back in time and observe how this pathogen that has had such a great effect on humanity has evolved," says one other research author. , the scientist Simon Rasmussen
"This strain has allowed us to learn interesting things about the early history of the plague," says Rascovan. "As it was found at a place and time that did not fit into any previous pattern of plague appearance and spread, it made us rethink everything and build a new evolutionary model. deduce that the plague probably appeared in the first large European human settlements, from where it probably spread rapidly throughout Eurasia. "
Scientists believe that archaeologists are now studying the human remains of the Neolithic. can also pay attention to the signs of the bacteria of the plague.
What will certainly remain a mystery is how primitive mankind managed to defeat the first major pandemic without being completely extinguished. "The plague is caused by one of the deadliest bacteria that has ever existed in humans," adds Rasmussen.
The researcher believes that the bacterium has evolved from a virtually harmless phenomenon – and this is important for understanding how pathogens become deadly. "We often think that these super-pathogens have always existed," says Rasmussen.
"The plague having evolved from a relatively harmless organism, more recently it is the same for smallpox, malaria, Ebola and zika."
Rasmussen thinks that this discovery complements this that we already knew about the decline of the European populations during this period. "If the plague evolved in the main settlements, then, when people started to die, the settlements were abandoned and destroyed, which is exactly what we saw about 5,500 years ago," he said. -he. . "Then people started to migrate along all the trade routes made possible by the transport of the time, and then quickly developed across Europe."
Which explains the fact that the plague reached the small village
Yersin, the discoverer
During the most famous black plague pandemic in the fourteenth century, an estimated 200 million people live in the region of Sweden, where remains of the bacteria have been observed in this woman. people died in Eurasia. The disease is very devastating – if it is not treated, the lethality is 100% of the cases.
The bacterium Yersinia pestis is transmitted by rat fleas.
Until the end of the 19th century, she was unknown. exactly what caused the serious illness. In 1894, the eccentric Swiss scientist Alexander Yersin (1863-1943), one of the most brilliant disciples of Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), discovered and isolated the bacterium, which was named Yersinia pestis in l & # 39; The honor of the scientist [19659002"YersinnestrompepbadursanotoriétéIlsaitquivecoulddeliveringthesetwolatinsYatsiniapolisisquebecasmalldoctorswillhave"wrotetheauthorfrenchPatrickDevilledinhisbookPestandCholeraBrazilbyEditora34
The book tells the wandering life of Yersin and all the epic that surrounded the discovery of the bacterium. "Yersin, if he was a Catholic, would be sanctified, he would be immediately canonized as a conqueror of the plague, because the story seems to have a supernatural inspiration," says another pbadage.
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