In 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte led a disastrous military campaign into Moscow. The death toll was devastating: Out of some 615,000 men, only about 110,000 survivors returned. (Napoleon abandoned his army in early December to return home on a sled.) Roughly 100,000 of the casualties died in battle, while as many as 300,000 perished from a combination of the bitter cold of Russia’s notoriously harsh winter, starvation, and disease.

Scholars have debated precisely what kinds of diseases ravaged Napoleon’s troops. New DNA analysis of some solders’ remains has revealed the presence of two pathogens in particular, according to a new paper published in the journal Current Biology. The first is Salmonella enterica , which causes paratyphoid fever ; the second is Borrelia recurrentis , whic

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