King Charles VIII of France's Death: From an Unsubstantiated Traumatic Brain Injury to More Realistic Hypotheses.

On April 7, 1498, Charles VIII, King of France, attended a game of palm in the ditches of the Château d'Amboise. The 27-year-old King suddenly collapsed and became comatose. He laid down, almost on his own, on a straw mat that was hastily arranged, and he died 9 hours later. His contemporaries perceived his death as a perfect reminder of fatality: a king could die alone in a miserable gallery. All who looked into this curious death had dwelled on the frontal blow to head that the king had sustained right before his demise and had not considered alternative scenarios. The present study, still with limited available evidence, aimed to reexamine the historical account of his death in light of modern medical knowledge. It is virtually impossible that a minor bump with low kinetic energy could kill a 27-year-old man. Many historical accounts of Charles VIII's life and death, including Italian ambassadors' letters, led us to reconsider the commonly held version and to propose an alternative hypothesis. We have concluded that Charles VIII had experienced an acute consciousness disorder with language impairment that could have been related to an epileptic condition secondary to neurosyphilis. We have discussed whether a more accurate diagnosis for the cause of death could be obtained by a pathological analysis of the King's remains.

Five millennia of Bartonella quintana bacteraemia.

During the two World Wars, Bartonella quintana was responsible for trench fever and is now recognised as an agent of re-emerging infection. Many reports have indicated widespread B. quintana exposure since the 1990s. In order to evaluate its prevalence in ancient populations, we used real-time PCR to detect B. quintana DNA in 400 teeth collected from 145 individuals dating from the 1st to 19th centuries in nine archaeological sites, with the presence of negative controls. Fisher's exact test was used to compare the prevalence of B. quintana in civil and military populations. B. quintana DNA was confirmed in a total of 28/145 (19.3%) individuals, comprising 78 citizens and 67 soldiers, 20.1% and 17.9% of which were positive for B. quintana bacteraemia, respectively. This study analysed previous studies on these ancient samples and showed that the presence of B. quintana infection followed the course of time in human history; a total of 14/15 sites from five European countries had a positive prevalence. The positive rate in soldiers was higher than those of civilians, with 20% and 18.8%, respectively, in the 18th and 19th centuries, but the difference in frequency was not significant. These results confirmed the role of dental pulp in diagnosing B. quintana bacteraemia in ancient populations and showed the incidence of B. quintana in both civilians and soldiers.

Tracing back ancient oral microbiomes and oral pathogens using dental pulps from ancient teeth.

Ancient dental pulps are highly precious samples because they conserve DNA from humans and blood-borne pathogens for ages. However, little is known about the microbial communities present in dental pulps. Here, we analyzed ancient and modern dental pulp samples from different time periods and geographic regions and found that they are colonized by distinct microbial communities, which can be differentiated from other oral cavity samples. We found that despite the presence of environmental bacteria, ancient dental pulps conserve a clear and well-conserved record of oral microbes. We were able to detect several different oral pathogens in ancient and modern dental pulps, which are commonly associated with periodontal diseases. We thus showed that ancient dental pulps are not only valuable sources of DNA from humans and systemic infections, but also an open window for the study of ancient oral microbiomes.