Pathogen prospecting of museums: Reconstructing malaria epidemiology.

Malaria is a disease of global significance. Ongoing changes to the earth's climate, antimalarial resistance, insecticide resistance, and socioeconomic decline test the resilience of malaria prevention programs. Museum insect specimens present an untapped resource for studying vector-borne pathogens, spurring the question: Do historical mosquito collections contain DNA, and, if so, can museum specimens be used to reconstruct the historical epidemiology of malaria? In this Perspective, we explore molecular techniques practical to pathogen prospecting, which, more broadly, we define as the science of screening entomological museum specimens for human, animal, or plant pathogens.

A distant city: Assessing the impact of Dutch socioeconomic developments on urban and rural health using respiratory disease as a proxy.

Objectives: To investigate the prevalence of respiratory disease in several populations from the Netherlands across different time periods and socioeconomic conditions.

Materials: We analyzed 695 adult individuals from six different Dutch contexts of urban and rural settlements dating to different time periods (i.e.

Developing an archaeology of malaria. A critical review of current approaches and a discussion on ways forward.

Objective: This paper presents the current state of the art in the investigation of past malaria by providing an extensive review of previous studies and identifying research possibilities for the future.

Materials: All previous research on the detection of malaria in human skeletal material using macroscopic and biomolecular approaches is considered.

Methods: The approaches and methods used by scholars and the results they obtained are evaluated and the limitations discussed.

Cribriotic lesions in archaeological human skeletal remains. Prevalence, co-occurrence, and association in medieval and early modern Netherlands.

Objective: This paper studies the prevalence, co-occurrence, and association of cribra orbitalia, cribra humeri, and cribra femora to contribute to the complex debate on cribriotic lesions and their relationship with one another.

Materials: 179 adults and 53 non-adults from the medieval/early modern Netherlands (800-1600 CE) for whom all three lesions could be observed are included in this study.

Methods: Presence or absence of cribriotic lesions was studied macroscopically.

Coming of age in the Netherlands: An osteological assessment of puberty in a rural Dutch post-medieval community.

Objectives: The objective of this study is to apply pubertal stage estimation methods to a sample from a rural community: the post-medieval Dutch skeletal collection from Middenbeemster. Puberty is a key developmental period involving transition to physical adulthood with broad societal relevance through its impact on fertility, morbidity, and mortality.

Materials And Methods: Individuals (n = 55), including 27 of known sex and age-at-death, between the ages of 8 and 25 years were assessed for six skeletal markers indicative of pubertal growth spurt.

Ancient Bacterial Genomes Reveal a High Diversity of Treponema pallidum Strains in Early Modern Europe.

Syphilis is a globally re-emerging disease, which has marked European history with a devastating epidemic at the end of the 15 century. Together with non-venereal treponemal diseases, like bejel and yaws, which are found today in subtropical and tropical regions, it currently poses a substantial health threat worldwide. The origins and spread of treponemal diseases remain unresolved, including syphilis' potential introduction into Europe from the Americas.

A probable case of metastatic carcinoma in the medieval Netherlands.

Despite recent considerable gains, our knowledge of cancer in antiquity is still limited. This paper discusses an adult individual from a Dutch medieval hospital site who demonstrates osteoblastic and osteolytic lesions on the ribs, scapula, clavicle, and vertebrae. The morphology, radiographic appearance, and distribution of the skeletal lesions suggest that this individual was affected by metastatic carcinoma.