Napoleon's army disintegrated because of lice

Lice play an important role in the disastrous failure of Napoleon Bonaparte when attacking Russia in 1812. A genetic study on the bones of the ill-fated army revealed that.

Napoleon marched to Russia in the summer of 1812, leading the largest army in Europe at that time, about half a million soldiers, into Moscow.

French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the army of Tsar Alexander I and Austrian Emperor Franz I at Austerlitz on December 2, 1905

This invasion was a response from the French emperor to the refusal of Tsar Alexander I to join the Continental System - a European economic and defense priority system to boycott British trade and strengthening the French economy at the expense of other countries.

Six months later, the mighty army fell to only 25,000, retreating to Vilnius, the Republic of Lithuania capital (east coast of the Baltic Sea) in cold weather. In the end, only 3,000 people survived the war, weather and illness to continue their retreat. The dead are buried in mass graves. Such a tomb, containing about 2,000 to 3,000 corpses, was found in 2001 in Vilnius in a construction site.

Analyzing the remaining bone fragments, scientists found certain genetic evidence that lice-borne diseases were a major cause of France's withdrawal from Russia. Didier Raoult, from the Mediterranean University in Marseille and colleagues published the latest finding in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

"We believe that illness caused by lice caused most deaths for Napoleon's army," Raoult said.

Lice are transmitted in 3 types of parasites Borrelia recurrentis, Bartonella quintana and Rickettsia prowazekii - pathogenic parasites with regression fever, trench sauce and Rickettsia fever.

Raoult and his colleagues analyzed two kilograms of soil from this huge grave with pieces of bone and shredded clothes and isolated five lice. 3 of them carry the DNA of the stroke fever parasite.

Then, when analyzing the marrow of 72 teeth, taken from the bodies of 35 soldiers, they found Bartonella quintana's DNA out of 7 people.

"We believe this finding provides solid evidence that soldiers are suffering from trench fever," the research team wrote.

They also discovered the parasite DNA Rickettsia prowazekii in three other soldiers, indicating that Napoleon's army suffered from Rickettsia.

In total, nearly one-third of the French emperor's soldiers buried in Vilnius were infected with diseases caused by lice, the researchers concluded.

T. An (according to Discovery)