Name that Plague!

I've been wondering what diseases afflicted the ancient Greeks, and in particular whether they suffered from smallpox (by the way, if you want to see some truly horrifying examples of that disease, try Google images).*

I know nothing about microbiotic forensics, but this seems a complicated question to answer. I've come across some fairly interesting stuff. For example, this from http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/epidemics/g/Kerameikos.htm:

"Kerameikos [a potter's district in ancient Athens] has an ancient burial pit with bodies from the Peloponnesian War, which Manolis Papagrigorakis, from the University of Athens, has examined. He has determined from DNA in the teeth that the plague that killed perhaps as many as one third of the Athenians was Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi, according to the Discovery Channel, reporting on Papagrigorakis' article in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases." [The article is available online]

Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi is the Latin name for Typhoid Fever. According to Papagrigorakis, "Considering the overcrowding and insanitary conditions (especially regarding water supplies) within the walls of the beseiged Athens, a typhoid epidemic would have been likely to break out either as the solitary cause of the plague or as a minor epidemic adjunct to a yet unidentified agent of the major one."

The symptoms of typhoid fever are as follows:

Symptoms
o Severe headache
o Fever
o Loss of Appetite
o General discomfort, uneasiness, or ill feeling (malaise)
o Rash (rose spots) appearing on the lower chest and abdomen during the second week of the fever
o Abdominal tenderness
o Constipation, then diarrhea
o Bloody stools
o Slow, sluggish, lethargic
o Fatigue
o Weakness
o Nosebleed
o Chills
o Delirium
o Confusion
o Agitation
o Fluctuating mood
o Difficulty paying attention (attention deficit)
o Hallucinations


The presence of typhoid fever in ancient Greece seems to be confirmed by the Founder of Modern Medicine himself, Hippocrates. The following case study of his fits the bill:

Case v. In Thasus, the wife of Dealces, who was lodged upon the Plain, from sorrow was seized with an acute fever, attended with chills. From first to last she wrapped herself up in her bedclothes; still silent, she fumbled, picked, bored, and gathered hairs (from them); tears, and again laughter; no sleep; bowels irritable, but passed nothing; when directed, drank a little; urine thin and scanty; to the touch of the hand the fever was slight; coldness of the extremities. On the ninth, talked much incoherently, and again became composed and silent. On the fourteenth, breathing rare, large, at intervals; and again hurried respiration. On the sixteenth, looseness of the bowels from a stimulant clyster; afterwards she passed her drink, nor could retain anything, for she was completely insensible; skin parched and tense. On the twentieth, much talk, and again became composed; loss of speech; respiration hurried. On the twenty-first she died. Her respiration throughout was rare and large; she was totally insensible; always wrapped up in her bedclothes; either much talk, or completely silent throughout. Phrenitis.


*It is believed that one of the Pharoahs, Ramses V, died of small pox, because of spots on his mummified face.