Plagues of Ancient Egypt

[guy]

The prevalence of malaria has been long suspected in Roman Italy. There is a debate about whether Alaric, the Visigoth King who sacked Rome in AD 210, died of malaria in Southern Italy (see post below).
 

Recent studies of mummies have shown DNA evidence of several debilitating and lethal infections in ancient Egypt. The DNA of boy pharaoh Tutankhamun (King Tut) and several mummies showed evidence of malaria. Other DNA evidence suggests one in four people may have had tuberculosis in some locations. The mummy of Ramesses V has scars indicating a previous smallpox infection.

It is thought up to 70% of Egyptians suffer from malaria. Swarms of malaria-infected mosquitos living in the stagnant pools of the Nile Delta would have made malarial infections endemic.

 

 

https://phys.org/news/2024-03-malaria-smallpox-polio-life-ancient.html

 

 

Edited June 5 by guy

[guidoLaMoto]

Malaria = mala aria = bad air The ancients were very close to a germ theory of disease. Pliny wrote in some detail about it.

The classic example of genetic adaptation to disease is the malaria/sickle cell trait so very common in the sub-Saharan  population.

 HbS (sickle cell trait) is not very common in modern Egyptians, so it's a stretch to claim it was common among their ancients forefathers. Malaria is spread only by the Anopheles mosquito which is adapted to life in the rain forests of central Africa, not temporary wet land seen only during the seasonal floods of the Nile Valley.

The Roman forum was a swampy area at The Founding. The Lacus Curtius was big & deep enough to get a horse and rider (Curtius) bogged down in the first Sabine war. It no longer exists having been drained by the Cloaca  maxima. The conditions were ripe, no doubt, for any number of mosquito borne infections to be prevalent-- yellow fever, the equine encephalopathies,  West Nile Virus etc etc....but viral illnesses, as we saw with the 1918 influenza and 2020 CoViD epidemics, are prone to pop up suddenly and then rapidly mutate/evolve to less devastating forms rapidly, so again, it-s a stretch to claim our modern viral diseases were common in ancient times.,.

Malaria and TB are not viral. Tuberculous bone lesions are not rare among Neandertal fossils, and the prevalence of the HbS allele suggests an ancient origin.

It's also a stretch to equate a club foot, usually seen as a congenital problem, with polio. Other forms of acquired neuropathy that allow for long term survival in order for bony aabnormalities to mature would be more likely than polio.

[guy]

16 hours ago, guidoLaMoto said:

 HbS (sickle cell trait) is not very common in modern Egyptians, so it's a stretch to claim it was common among their ancients forefathers. Malaria is spread only by the Anopheles mosquito which is adapted to life in the rain forests of central Africa, not temporary wet land seen only during the seasonal floods of the Nile Valley.

Thank you for reading my post and thank you for your thoughtful response. I will disagree, however, with what you wrote.

First, the sickle cell trait’s being in a local population is not sine qua non (an essential condition) for endemicity of malaria. (Interestingly, other conditions also seem to confer some immunity to malaria: G6PD deficiency, thalassemia, blood group O, and a Duffy-negative phenotype.)

Second, since Egypt was once the “bread basket of Rome,” I assume the Egyptian microenvironment was different with greater rainfall and temperatures more conducive for grain growth (and malaria). 

In fact, malaria was not eliminated in Egypt till 2010-2013. In the United States as late as 1850, almost 50 people out of every one thousand who died, died from malaria. During the American Civil War (1861-65), 10,000 Northern troops died from malaria and hundreds of thousands of others were infected. Fortunately, the use of Quinine in the Union Army reduced the morbidity and mortality from malaria.

Finally, studies at Amarna, a capital of ancient Egypt from 1346 to 1332 BCE, have shown conclusively that malaria was endemic in the area (affecting perhaps half the population):

 

 

 

Thank you, again, for reading my post and responding.
 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600412/

 

 

Edited March 17 by guy

[guidoLaMoto]

Allele frequencies are subject to the "use it or lose it" phenomenon, so persistence of the HbS trait in high numbers suggests endemicity of SSD in subSaharan populations, and it's much lower frequency in Egyptians suggests any malaria seen there was more sporatic, maybe epidemic in certain years under more favorable but unusual conditions.

Egypt was a major source of grain because the annual spring floods were so consistent & dependable. While the strip of fertile Nile farmland was quite narrow, it was also quite long  providing more arable acres than any other region around the Mare Nostrum.

Malaria was quite common in the LA Bayou area, I didn't realize it posed such a problem during The Rebellion. Thanks for that info.

 

 

[caesar novus]

Here is a malaria map of Italy 1882 but the hotspot returned in the 1940s when Germans sabotaged drainage canals from the Roman thru Mussolini era in deliberate biological warfare.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontine_Marshes for this swamp shaping the location of Via Appia, and how pre Mussolini:

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The Italian Red Cross related that, during the malaria season, 80% of those having spent one night in the marsh became infected.

So for south of Rome it was solved in the 1930s, backfired cruelly in the 1940s, and:

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The last of the malaria was conquered in the 1950s, with the aid of DDT.

After benefiting from DDT tough love, the first world scaremongered third world countries out of even one time eradications.