Once in Los Angeles, a lover of antiques suddenly fell ill with a form of flu unknown to modern doctors. When they began to understand, it turned out that the day before he had acquired an old bed of the era of Louis XIII, in which the viruses of the so-called "disease of kings", widely known in the 16th-17th centuries, have been safely preserved to this day.
As a result, I had to spend a lot of time and effort fighting this messenger of the past centuries …
The vitality of some types of microbes is truly amazing. From time to time there are sensational reports about the discovery and revival of microorganisms that have been in a state of suspended animation for tens, hundreds, thousands and even millions of years!
So, in 1956, anthrax spores, identified back in 1888 by L. Pasteur, were revived. In London, in the largest botanical garden, Kew Gardens, where a herbarium is kept, regularly replenished since 1640, in lumps of soil adhering to the roots of plants, the English microbiologist P. Snees was able to find quite viable spores of a number of microbes. Moreover, they were in the soil that fell into the herbarium almost 300 years ago! According to the scientist, in a ton of dry soil, several viable spores can persist even for a thousand years.
In 1959, the German microbiologist G. Dombrowski observed under a microscope the usual picture: in the droplets of mineral water, which the scientist studied, there were various microorganisms. He immediately began to study uninvited guests who could irrevocably pollute the new source. However, it soon became clear that these microscopic creatures did not resemble any of the species known at that time.
The discovered bacteria Dr. Dombrowski called pseudomonas halocrene, which means "bacteria from salt springs." But where these mysterious microorganisms came from remained unknown. In 1962, in salt samples taken in the area of the workshop-stein near the springs of Bad Nauheim, raised from a depth of 209 meters and then dissolved in a nutrient broth, colonies of microorganisms soon grew, in which one could recognize all the same pseudomonas halocrene.
The same bacteria were found during microscopic examination of dry samples of mined salt. Enclosed in transparent salt crystals, they were ready to return to life after millions of years! In the course of further research in new salt samples taken from a depth of 400-700 meters from other areas of the ancient Zechstein Sea, G. Dombrovsky again isolated colonies of the same bacteria. Samples of rock salt from other countries were also examined.
Again, a viable bacterial flora developed in the nutrient broth in all cases. In samples taken in the Saskatchewan area of Canada, bacteria that were 360 million years old were found and revived. And from the petrified salt mined in the Irkutsk region, bacteria were isolated at the age of 500-600 million years, which lived at the dawn of the Paleozoic era!
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HIDDEN EVERYWHERE
The American microbiologist C. Lipman, in the course of studying the walls of the ancient Indian pyramids in Peru, whose age is about 4 800 years, and in coal seams, whose age was estimated at 300 million years, also managed to find quite viable bacteria.
In the mid-1970s, English scientists investigating the ruins of the Roman fort of Vindoland, dating from about 90 AD. e. and located near Carlisle, found viable spores of microscopic fungi - actinomycetes.
During excavations in Yakutia, Russian scientists found in the ancient layers of permafrost, unknown to modern science and quite viable bacteria, whose age was about 2 million years.
DISEASE FROM UNDER THE EARTH
How should we treat such discoveries? Firstly, they are very clear confirmation that many types of microbes have truly amazing resilience and adaptability to adverse environmental changes. Forming spores, they seem to preserve themselves and are able to withstand exposure to high and low temperatures, pressure, prolonged drying, etc. When exposed to favorable conditions, spores germinate and vegetative forms of living microbes appear. At the same time, low temperatures in some cases contribute to a rather long preservation of even those microorganisms that do not form spores.
But, among other things, discoveries of this kind also testify to a very serious danger arising in this connection. The fact is that in our time, cases of the appearance of such microbes, unexpectedly reviving after a long hibernation, have already been recorded. So, in 1982, in one of the collective farms of the Perm region, one of the cows suddenly fell ill with anthrax. At first, it was not clear where this disease came from and where to look for its source, since even old residents did not remember cases of anthrax in those places.
As it turned out later, in the summer on the banks of the Shakva River, a group of archaeological students discovered an ancient settlement. During the excavations, it was suggested that around the 7th century, some kind of disease raged here, from which many people and animals died. The surviving residents of the settlement burned their homes and left these places. A collective farm herd constantly grazed near the excavations, and in soil samples taken there by microbiologists, there were anthrax spores, which for thirteen centuries quietly dozed in the depths of the earth.
A curious incident happened with Alice King, a resident of the American town of Ripley. From her grandmother she inherited a luxurious collection of all kinds of fans and fans. Once, preparing for a charity ball, Alice looked through them and opted for an old fan made of ostrich feathers, brought back from Egypt. After two hours of work, the fan turned into a graceful fan, with which Alice went to the ball. But by the next morning, the woman suddenly fell ill. After the examination, the doctors diagnosed cholera. On the fan used by the patient, cholera vibrios were found, which retained their viability for 76 years.
Ramon Sanchez, a resident of the city of Ilo in Peru, while working on his land, accidentally discovered an ancient Inca burial. At night, he opened the stone sarcophagus, where there was a dried up mummy, on which hung the only valuable thing - a gold medallion. Satisfied, Sanchez took off the graceful thing and, deciding that it would be an excellent amulet, hung it around his neck. But the unlucky treasure hunter failed to keep the history of his discovery a secret and once, having drunk a little, accidentally let it slip.
Soon Ramon Sanchez, always distinguished by good health, suddenly fell ill and began to wither before our eyes. Doctors diagnosed him with tuberculosis, and he had to go to the hospital. Rumors of his discovery had by that time reached the capital of the country, and intensive archaeological excavations began on the site of the tomb of the ancient Incas.
In the course of the study, scientists came up with a very interesting discovery that literally shocked a treasure seeker lying on a hospital bed. It turned out that in this grave lay a woman buried almost a thousand years ago. In the hot climate of the Atacama Desert, her body was dry and well preserved, turning into a mummy. In the course of medical research, bacteria were found in her skin, right lung and other places, which all this time retained their vitality.
American microbiologist William Salo identified them as Mycobacterium tuberculosis. By the way, this discovery was another confirmation that tuberculosis existed in Latin America long before the first Europeans arrived there. In this regard, the cause of the illness of the Peruvian peasant became clear. It is possible that he contracted the infection by inhaling the air along with the dust particles raised during the opening of the grave. Or the danger was in the gold medallion he wore proudly.
But be that as it may, the insidious bacteria have been waiting for their time for a thousand years and in the end they have found their prey.
Dmitry MAKUNIN