Tag: medical history

Categories : General InterestTags :

Volcanic Eruptions Set off a Chain of Events that Brought the Black Death to Europe

On By ModernMedia
Catalan Atlas, 1375. Credit: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, via Wikimedia Commons

Clues contained in tree rings have identified mid-14th-century volcanic activity as the first domino to fall in a sequence that led to the devastation of the Black Death in Europe.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO) in Leipzig have used a combination of climate data and documentary evidence to paint the most complete picture to date of the ‘perfect storm’ that led to the deaths of tens of millions of people, as well as profound demographic, economic, political, cultural and religious change.

Their evidence suggests that a volcanic eruption – or cluster of eruptions – around 1345 caused annual temperatures to drop for consecutive years due to the haze from volcanic ash and gases, which in turn caused crops to fail across the Mediterranean region. To avoid riots or starvation, Italian city-states used their connections to trade with grain producers around the Black Sea.

This climate-driven change in long-distance trade routes helped avoid famine, but in addition to life-saving food, the ships were carrying the deadly bacterium that ultimately caused the Black Death, enabling the first and deadliest wave of the second plague pandemic to gain a foothold in Europe.

This is the first time that it has been possible to obtain high-quality natural and historical proxy data to draw a direct line between climate, agriculture, trade and the origins of the Black Death. The results are reported in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

The Black Death was one of the largest disasters in human history. Between 1347 and 1353, it killed millions of people across Europe. In some parts of the continent, the mortality rate was close to 60%.

While it is accepted that the disease was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which originated from wild rodent populations in central Asia and reached Europe via the Black Sea region, it’s still unclear why the Black Death started precisely when it did, where it did, why it was so deadly, and how it spread so quickly.

“This is something I’ve wanted to understand for a long time,” said Professor Ulf Büntgen from Cambridge’s Department of Geography. “What were the drivers of the onset and transmission of the Black Death, and how unusual were they? Why did it happen at this exact time and place in European history? It’s such an interesting question, but it’s one no one can answer alone.”

Büntgen, whose research group uses information stored in tree rings to reconstruct past climate variability, worked with Dr Martin Bauch, a historian of medieval climate and epidemiology from the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe, on the study.

“We looked into the period before the Black Death with regard to food security systems and recurring famines, which was important to put the situation after 1345 in context,” said Bauch. “We wanted to look at the climate, environmental and economic factors together, so we could more fully understand what triggered the onset of the second plague pandemic in Europe.”

Together, they combined high-resolution climate data and written documentary evidence with conceptual reinterpretations of the connections between humans and climate to show that a volcanic eruption – or series of eruptions – around 1345 was likely the first step in a sequence that ultimately led to the Black Death.

The researchers were able to approximate this eruption through information contained in tree rings from the Spanish Pyrenees, where consecutive ‘Blue Rings’ point to unusually cold and wet summers in 1345, 1346 and 1347 across much of southern Europe. While a single cold year is not uncommon, consecutive cold summers are highly unusual. Documentary evidence from the same period notes unusual cloudiness and dark lunar eclipses, which also suggest volcanic activity.

This volcanically forced climatic downturn led to poor harvests, crop failure and famine. However, the Italian maritime republics of Venice, Genoa and Pisa were able to import grain from the Mongols of the Golden Horde around the Sea of Azov in 1347.

“For more than a century, these powerful Italian city-states had established long-distance trade routes across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, allowing them to activate a highly efficient system to prevent starvation,” said Bauch. “But ultimately, these would inadvertently lead to a far bigger catastrophe.”

The ships that carried grain from the Black Sea most likely also carried fleas infected with Yersinia pestis, as previous research has already pointed out. But why grain was so urgently needed by the Italians has now become much clearer. It is still unknown exactly where this deadly bacterium originated, but ancient DNA has suggested there may have been a natural reservoir in wild gerbils somewhere in central Asia.

Once the plague-infected fleas arrived in 14th-century Mediterranean ports on grain ships, they became a vector for disease transmission, enabling the bacterium to jump from mammalian hosts – mostly rodents, but potentially including domesticated animals – to humans. It rapidly spread across Europe, devastating the population.

“In so many European towns and cities, you can find some evidence of the Black Death, almost 800 years later,” said Büntgen. “Here in Cambridge, for instance, Corpus Christi College was founded by townspeople after the plague devastated the local community. There are similar examples across much of the continent.”

“And yet, we could also demonstrate that many Italian cities, even large ones like Milan and Rome, were most probably not affected by the Black Death, apparently because they did not need to import grain after 1345,” said Bauch. “The climate-famine-grain connection has potential for explaining other plague waves.”

The researchers say the ‘perfect storm’ of climate, agricultural, societal and economic factors after 1345 that led to the Black Death can also be considered an early example of the consequences of globalisation.

“Although the coincidence of factors that contributed to the Black Death seems rare, the probability of zoonotic diseases emerging under climate change and translating into pandemics is likely to increase in a globalised world,” said Büntgen. “This is especially relevant given our recent experiences with Covid-19.”

The researchers say that resilience to future pandemics requires a holistic approach to address a wide spectrum of health threats. Modern risk assessments should incorporate knowledge from historical examples of the interactions between climate, disease and society.

The research was supported in part by the European Research Council, the Czech Science Foundation and the Volkswagen Foundation.

Reference:
Martin Bauch and Ulf Büntgen. ‘Climate-driven changes in Mediterranean grain trade mitigated famine but introduced the Black Death to medieval Europe.’ Communications Earth and Environment (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-025-02964-0

Republished from University of Cambridge under a Creative Commons licence

Read the original article.

Categories : General InterestTags :

New Research Shines a Light into Dark Ages Medicine

On By ModernMedia
Medieval manuscripts like the Cotton MS Vitellius C III highlight uses for herbs that reflect modern-day wellness trends. Image Credit: The British Library.

A new international research project has shown that Europe in the Dark Ages wasn’t in the dark when it came to medicine. The research, featuring faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York reveals that people were developing health practices based on the best knowledge they had at the time – some of which mirror modern wellness trends.

“People were engaging with medicine on a much broader scale than had previously been thought,” said Meg Leja, an associate professor of history at Binghamton University who specialises in the political and cultural history of late antique and medieval Europe. “They were concerned about cures, they wanted to observe the natural world and jot down bits of information wherever they could in this period known as the ‘Dark Ages.’”

The Corpus of Early Medieval Latin Medicine (CEMLM), funded by the British Academy, has collected hundreds of medieval manuscripts containing medical material predating the 11th century. Countless manuscripts that have been left out of previous catalogs were included, nearly doubling the number of known medical manuscripts from the Dark Ages.

Some of the recipes resemble health hacks promoted by modern-day influencers, from topical ointments to detox cleanses. Have a headache? Crush the stone of a peach, mix it with rose oil and smear it on your forehead. It might sound odd, but one study published in 2017 showed that rose oil may actually help alleviate migraine pain.

Then there’s lizard shampoo, where you take pieces of lizard to help your hair become more luscious and flowing – or even to remove it, a modern-day parallel to waxing.

“A lot of things that you see in these manuscripts are actually being promoted online currently as alternative medicine, but they have been around for thousands of years,” said Leja.

Leja spent the last two years with the rest of the team preparing the new catalogue (which was just released online), reviewing manuscripts from throughout Europe, and editing and formatting the catalog. She had previously written about medieval medicine in her first book, Embodying the Soul: Medicine and Religion in Carolingian Europe.

Many of the writings were found within the margins of books totally unrelated to medicine—manuscripts on grammar, theology, poetry , etc. Leja said that this speaks to a preoccupation with the body’s health and figuring out ways to control it.

“It’s true that we do lack a lot of sources for the period. In that sense, it is ‘dark.’ But not in terms of any kind of ‘anti-science’ attitudes—people in the early Middle Ages were quite into science, into observation, into figuring out the utility of different natural substances, and trying to identify patterns and make predictions” said Leja.

The research team will continue to update the catalogue with new manuscripts and are working on new editions and translations of medical texts that could be used in teaching. Leja noted that while previously catalogues focused on texts from well-known authorities like Hippocrates, this isn’t necessarily material that people in the Dark Ages would have prioritised, and a more comprehensive catalogue will allow historians to show medicine in its fullness.

The Corpus of Early Medieval Latin Medicine (CEMLM) is available online, produced by team members from Binghamton, Fordham, St. Andrews, Utrecht, and Oslo.

Source: Binghamton University

Categories : General Interest GeneticsTags :

Genetic Analysis Reveals Secrets of Vlad Dracula the Impaler

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Mediaeval tyrant and inspiration for vampires, protein analysis reveals health secrets about Vlad the Impaler

New research analysing ancient protein residues left in letters written by the sadistic 15th century tyrant – and vampire inspiration – Vlad Dracula the Impaler suggests that he suffered from a number of health conditions. One of these conditions seemingly confirms one of the more outlandish tales about him – that he cried tears of blood.

Vlad the Impaler got his nickname because he impaled thousands of people on stakes: enemies (mainly the Ottoman Empire), criminals and anyone suspected of conspiring against his rule. He was eventually defeated in 1460, but the newly invented printing press spread the tale of his gruesome deeds all over Europe. Tales surrounding him may have inspired the iconic character of Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula in 1897. Nevertheless, more modern vampire stories such as Netflix’s ‘Castlevania’ make use of Vlad as inspiration.

This terrifying reputation made him an interesting topic for a bit of genetic archaeology in a paper published in Analytical Chemistry. Using sophisticated proteomic techniques, scientists analysed three letters written in 1457 and 1475 by the voivode of Wallachia, Vlad III, also known as Vlad the Impaler, or Vlad Dracula. This allowed them to tease out information about the man who wrote the letters as well as general information about the environmental conditions of 15th century Wallachia, a place of regional trade and conflict as well as disease transmission.

While centuries-old paper is unlikely to hold entire DNA strands, scientists were still able to piece together genetic information about the writer. The technique depends on the notion that a person’s writing hand will tend to rest on the paper being written upon, rubbing off a surprising amount of organic molecules in the process. They applied ethylene vinyl acetate to the papers, and with mass spectrometry, they discovered over 500 peptides – short chains of amino acids – with about 100 being of human origin, which they looked up in database searches.

Figure 1. (a) First letter (archive catalog number is II 365), dated August 4, 1475, here investigated, also showing the positions of the EVA strips (brownish rectangles) applied to its surface for capturing biological material; (b) mapping of the fluorescence of phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan under flash UV illumination (see the original article). Anal. Chem. 2023, 95, 34, 12732-12744

The researchers noted that while many mediaeval people may have handled these papers, it is also presumable that the most prominent ancient proteins can be attributed to the one who wrote and signed them – Prince Vlad the Impaler.

First, they discovered proteins pointing to ciliopathy, which affects the cellular cilia or the cilia anchoring structures, the basal bodies or ciliary function. This can manifest in a wide range of disorders, ranging from cerebral malformation to liver disease and intellectual disability.

They also uncovered signs of an undetermined inflammatory disease which likely involved his skin and respiratory tract.

Proteomics data also suggests that, according to some stories, he might also have suffered from a pathological condition called haemolacria – he could shed tears admixed with blood. This appears to confirm what some stories said about Vlad – that he sometimes cried tears of blood. While it is a known medical condition, it would have no doubt been terrifying for superstitious mediaeval people to behold when seen in someone with a reputation like Vlad the Impaler’s.

Non-human peptides also proved to be a window into the conditions of the time, hinting at common foods, pests and diseases. Database searches of the identified, as potential endogenous original components, 3 proteins from bacteria, 24 from viruses, 4 from fungi, 17 from insects (suggesting fruit flies), and 5 from plants (including rice, wheat and thale cress). Of the bacteria, they noted that some peptides related to Enterobacterales are specific to Yersinia pestis, the pathogenic bacterium causing plague, whereas another group is specific to E. coli.

Categories : Paediatrics Skeletal SystemTags :

20% of Healthy Children May Have Benign Bone Tumours

On By ModernMedia

Around 20% of healthy children may possess benign tumours, according to a review of radiographs taken nearly a century ago.

Although it sounds alarming, non-ossifying fibromas and other common benign bone tumours in symptom-free children are not dangerous. Such bone tumours are often discovered on x-rays taken for other causes, such as a fracture. 

“Understandably, these tumours cause a lot of anxiety for patients and families as they await confirmation that the tumour is benign,” said Christopher Collier, MD, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indiana University. “They need reassurance and often ask how common these tumours are, when did they first appear, and whether they will resolve over time? We don’t have much evidence to date to address these questions.”

To address these questions, the researchers analysed annual x-rays taken of children’s bones as they grew, however such studies today are not feasible today due to ethical concerns over sensitivity of children to ionising radiation. Therefore, they drew on a unique collection of radiographs from the Brush Inquiry, a study in which a series of healthy, ‘normal’ children in Ohio, underwent annual radiographs from 1926 to 1942.

Dr Collier’s team analysed a total of 25 555 digitised radiographs of 262 children, followed from infancy to adolescence, finding a high prevalence of bone tumours. A total of 35 benign bone tumors were found in 33 children – an overall rate of 18.9 percent when considering that only the left side of the children was radiographed.

Over half of the tumours were non-ossifying fibromas, which are connective tissue masses that have not hardened into bone. Generally, these fibromas appeared around age five, and again around the time of skeletal maturation, possibly linked to growth spurts. Of 19 non-ossifying fibromas detected, seven disappeared over time. Others may have resolved some time after the annual radiographs stopped.

Rarer benign bone tumoors included enostoses, sometimes called ‘bone islands’; and osteochondromas or enchondromas (tumours in cartilage). In patients with these tumours, they persisted to the last available radiograph.

The findings are similar to the rates of benign bone tumours in healthy adults. Dr Collier noted: “Despite the inherent limitations of our historical study, it may provide the best available evidence regarding the natural history of asymptomatic benign childhood bone tumors.”

Source: News-Medical.Net

Categories : COVID Diseases, Syndromes and ConditionsTags :

A Four Century Old Manual for Social Distancing Rules

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A feature article from the BBC details how one doctor in the era of the Plague created an eerily familiar set of social distancing guidelines that matches a lot of our non-pharmaceutical COVID controls.

Staying at home and only sending out one person to do the shopping, keeping six feet apart and disinfecting goods – all of these feature in a manual created over four centuries ago to help protect Alghero, a small Italian town against the plague. The methods by a doctor named  Quinto Tiberio Angelerio, published in a 57-page booklet on his methods, titled Ectypa Pestilentis Status Algheriae Sardiniae.

Unlike most plague outbreaks, it failed to spread to neighbouring areas and died out within eight months – though not without claiming about 60% of the town’s initial population of 6000. Angelerio’s rules are thought to be at least partly responsible.

Ravaging Europe as well as Asia and North Africa, the plague left an unimaginable mark on Western society; tunnelling projects in London regularly run into mass graves of plague victims. Italian poet Francesco Petrarca wrote that future generations would likely not be able to grasp the scale of the calamity, and he is probably right in that regard. The plague continued to reappear, and devastated regions when it did – The Great Plague of London saw 24% of its populace dying over 1665 to 1666.

Although the germ theory of disease was then still centuries in the future, and bathing in urine was thought to be effective treatment, physicians in Europe believed in the contagion theory, thinking that diseases were spread through “miasmas” or “bad air”. This enabled them to come up with the idea of quarantines, from the Italian for “forty days” which was the standard isolation period.

Facing huge obstacles from a recalcitrant citizenry, Angelerio nevertheless persevered and soon a lockdown was enacted. This was not unique, as whole cities would be quarantined. Other rules that were enforced included a social distancing of six feet (as measured by a pole to be carried around by anyone outside), advising people to be careful shaking hands during mass, as well as railing preventing customers coming into contact with shopkeepers. He also used superstition to keep people in line, as European people of the time believed the plague to be divine punishment – although rule breakers were common, as they are now with COVID. He also advised cleaning and disinfecting houses, and household goods (or burning if replaceable), in addition to the contemporary practice of disinfecting newly arrived cargo. This was accomplished by fire or exposure to the wind, among others. However, the common practice of killing cats in response to plague was likely counterproductive, as rats hosted plague-carrying fleas.

Nevertheless, Angelero’s work was ahead of its time, and helped lay the foundations of modern disease control.

.Source: BBC Future