Of mice and men: Traces of life in the death registries of the 1630 plague in Milano

摘要

The death registries of the plague epidemic of 1630, stored at the Archivio di Stato of Milano, have been interrogated via the EVA film technology (ethyl vinyl acetate film studded with crushed strong anion and cation exchangers as well as C-8 resins) The EVA diskettes have been left in contact with the lower right margins of 11 different pages pertaining to the peak months of the raging disease (June through end of September) for 60-90 min and then the captured material, after elution and digestion, analysed by mass spectrometry The main findings 17 Yersiniaceae family proteins, 31 different human keratins, 22 unique mouse keratins, about 400 peptides from different bacterial strains, 58 human tissue proteins and 130 additional mouse and rat tissue proteins In addition, 60 plant proteins (notably potato, corn, rice, carrot and chickpeas), likely representing the meagre meals of the scribes, contaminating the pages, were detected The significance of these unique findings is amply illustrated in the body of the article.