Emerging Microbes

Every age has had its emerging infectious diseases. Microbes and the diseases they cause are organized here by the era that they first emerged as a major threat to human populations. Some of them like malaria have been major pathogens since they emerged in the depths of Antiquity (or before). Others have come and gone, and some are still in their first emergence. All of them are interesting for our understanding of history and are still relevant for our future.

Paleomicrobiology

• Old Germs, or Paleomicrobiology
• Tools of Paleomicrobiology
• Hunting Pathogens in Siberian Permafrost Graves
• Ancient Remnants: Biomolecules in Paleomicrobiology (non-nucleic acid)

Antiquity (before c. 400 AD/CE)

Anthrax

• Famine and Epidemic Anthrax, Saint-Domingue (Haiti), 1770
• When Anthrax first came to North America

Malaria (Plasmodium species)

• Malaria and the Boy Pharaoh
• Benjamin Rush on Malaria in Pennsylvania, 1785
• A Reversal of Seasons
• Mapping Malaria, Smallpox, and Leprosy
• Dr Seuss Does Malaria
• Mapping Malaria in Anglo-Saxon England
• Malaria Near the Arctic Circle

Leprosy (Mycobacterium leprae, before 2000 BCE)

• Leprosy in Medieval Scandinavia

Lyme Disease (Borrelia burgdorferi, 5300 BP)

• Metagenomics, Lyme Disease, and the Tyrolean Iceman’s Tattoos

Trench Fever (Bartonella quintana, 4000 BP)

• Detecting pathogens in medieval Venice
• Trench Fever and Plague in 14th Century France
• Lice, Ancient DNA, and Napoleon’s Grand Army
• Trench Fever in German Mass Burial

Smallpox

• Lincoln’s Illness at Gettysburg
• Mapping Malaria, Smallpox and Leprosy
• Siberian Mummy Yields 300-year-old Smallpox DNA

Medieval (c. 400-1400 AD/CE)

Black Death at Tourinai, 1349

The Plague (Yersinia pestis, first pandemic 541 AD/CE)

• See the Plague page here at Contagions!
• Plague DNA from Late Antique Bavaria
• The Vampire in the Plague Pit
• Plague in 18th century Egypt
• Detecting pathogens in medieval Venice
• DNA of the Black Death from East Smithfield, London

Yellow Fever (6th – 13th century)

• When Yellow Fever Came to the Americas

Measles (11th-12th century)

• Rinderpest, Measles, and Medieval Emerging Infectious Diseases

Modern (1400-present)

Red Cross during the Spanish Flu, St Louis, 1918

Influenza (first pandemic 1510)

• Influenza Pandemics: 1510-2010
• Epidemiology of the Russian Flu, 1889-1890
• Insights into the Pathogenesis of the Spanish Flu
• Defining pandemic

Cholera (Vibrio cholerae, first pandemic 1830s)

• Cholera in Illinois’ American Bottoms Region, 1849
• Clonal Origins of Haiti’s Cholera Epidemic
• Cradle of Cholera’s Seventh Pandemic Found
• Cholera’s Chain of Infection
• Historic Meanings of “Cholera”