12/29/2025
In 1812, the French emperor led an army of over half a million men.
Six months later, an estimated tens of thousands of its soldiers returned to France after a forced retreat.
"Previously, we just thought that there was one infectious disease that decimated the Napoleon army - the typhus," said lead study author Rémi Barbieri, a postdoctoral researcher at Estonia's University of Tartu.
Barbieri's team discovered previously undetected pathogens Salmonella enterica and Borrelia recurrentis in the teeth of fallen soldiers. The bacteria cause paratyphoid fever and relapsing fever, respectively, which could have contributed to the soldiers' deaths.
