Yersinia pestis DNA Sequences in Late Medieval Skeletal Finds, Bavaria

摘要

To the Editor: Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague, is held re-sponsible for 3 human pandemics: the Justinian plague (5th–7th century), the Black Death (13th–15th century), and modern plague (1870s to present). In 1894, Alexandre Yersin identifi ed Y. pestis during an epidemic of plague in Hong Kong (1). However, whether Y. pestis was indeed responsible for the medieval epidemic is still controver-sial. Y. pestis specifi c DNA has been detected in medieval skeletal fi nds (2,3), although some investigators have failed to do so (4), leading to the suggestion that a viral hemorrhagic fever was the agent of these medieval pandemics (5).