Napoleonic soldiers killed by louses
French scientists announced that during retreat from Russia in 1812 "great army" of Napoleon was killed not by Russian frost and hunger but by louses.
Experts from French national center of scientific investigations examined the remains of Napoleonic soldiers, buried near Lithuanian capital Vilnius, 800 km from Moscow.
It turned out that more than 30% of people died because of bacterial infection, spread by louses. The matter concerns the relapsing fever with pathogen Borrelia recurrentis, widely known during First world war "trench fever", caused by Bartonella Quintana, and spotted fever, initiated by Rickettsia prowazeki.
Samples of bacteria were discovered in remains of insects, found in common grave. Moreover, several kept teeth of Napoleonic soldiers contained pathogens of illness.
By refined data, remains of several hundreds of Frenchmen, retreated from Russia in winter of 1812-1813, were found in common grave under Vilnius in 2001.
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