
Remains of 17th century bishop support Neolithic emergence of tuberculosis - benbreen
https://www.shh.mpg.de/1825450/neolithic-emergence-of-tuberculosis
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hinkley
I recall being fairly surprised at one point to learn that TB and leprosy were
things that many people had an innate immunity to.

You think about all of those nurses, nuns and priestesses who took care of
people with chronic illnesses in an era before we really understood infectious
diseases. You were playing a single round of russian roulette with your own
health, but your odds were good enough that we could ascribe your outcome to
fate or gods.

It often makes me wonder if the disease is maladapted or if they are truly
ancient and most of us are descendants of the survivors.

~~~
rjsw
We didn't help things by preventing immunity being passed on to future
generations, not many nuns have children.

~~~
lgeorget
Not that I have formation or experience in the field but my understanding was
that only antibodies were passed from the mother to the children, not
lymphocytes or immunity memory.

But now that I google it, there is a rather new body of research about the
genetic and epigenetic component of immunity. Like
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27102489/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27102489/)
for example. What an exciting time to be alive.

~~~
namenotrequired
I interpreted the GP's words "innate immunity" as meaning "genetic". Was I
wrong?

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frereubu
I did a double-take at the mention of seals in the phrase "...not only were
the ancient strains unexpectedly related to those circulating in present-day
seals, but comparison against a large number of human strains..." and wondered
whether it was an autocorrect mistake. But apparently not: "Seals brought TB
to Americas" [https://www.nature.com/news/seals-brought-tb-to-
americas-1.1...](https://www.nature.com/news/seals-brought-tb-to-
americas-1.15748)

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acqq
> passed away in the winter of 1679

> “Discovery of the Bishop’s lung calcification gave us the opportunity to
> revisit the question of tuberculosis emergence with data from an ancient
> European”

Their definition of "ancient" is obviously different than mine:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/srd3e/how_ol...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/srd3e/how_old_does_something_have_to_be_to_be/)

I don't know if it's just "lost in translation", something specific to
analysis of old DNA or something else.

~~~
thaumasiotes
The meaning of "ancient" is always sensitive to context. "Ancient Greece" is
probably around 500 BC. (More broadly, 700 BC forward.) By 500 BC, Egypt is
_over_ ; it's been conquered by Persia. (It will experience a renaissance of
sorts later, but will not regain self rule until the 20th century.) " _New
Kingdom_ " Egypt ends in the 11th century BC. There were Greeks at that time,
but we call them "Mycenaean Greeks" \- "Ancient Greeks" would refer to people
from a much later period.

The Chinese are happy to refer to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) as "ancient"
(古). Obviously there's a world of difference between that and the Spring and
Autumn period (771-476), but if you _need_ to know exactly how old whatever
you're talking about is, you'll just use more specific terminology.

~~~
rootsudo
Using a Palm Pilot is ancient in comparison to todays' Iphone 11.

Does that count?

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Ericson2314
Time to add to the TODO lists for the second edition of "Against the Grain", I
guess.

