- #1
pinball1970
Gold Member
- 3,523
- 5,569
- TL;DR Summary
- A new analysis of ancient feces taken from two Jerusalem latrines dating back to the biblical Kingdom of Judah has uncovered traces of a single-celled microorganism Giardia duodenalis—a common cause of debilitating diarrhea in humans.
General description and link.
https://phys.org/news/2023-05-early-toilets-reveal-dysentery-testament.html
"A new analysis of ancient feces taken from two Jerusalem latrines dating back to the biblical Kingdom of Judah has uncovered traces of a single-celled microorganism Giardia duodenalis—a common cause of debilitating diarrhea in humans."
The latrine would have been upper class elite based on the archaeology of the structures around it.
The article goes on to say,
"Previous research has dated traces of the Entamoeba parasite, which also causes dysentery, as far back as Neolithic Greece over 4,000 years ago. Previous work has also shown that users of ancient Judean toilets were infected by other intestinal parasites including whipworm, tapeworm and pinworm.
This research was undertaken through a collaboration between the University of Cambridge, Tel Aviv University, and the Israel Antiquities Authority."
The paper here.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...-century-bce/FD98E6D61F8D264616547EA4EBED69E4
ELISA was the technique used to identify the parasite antigens."microscopy with immunofluorescent monoclonal antibodies (Faulkner et al., Reference Faulkner, Patton and Johnson1989; Le Bailly et al., Reference Le Bailly, Gonçalves, Harter-Lailheugue, Prodéo, Araujo and Bouchet2008) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) that use antibodies to detect antigens uniquely made by these protozoan organisms (Gonçalves et al., Reference Gonçalves, Araújo, Duarte, Pereira da Silva, Reinhard, Bouchet and Ferreira2002, Reference Gonçalves, Da Silva, de Andrade, Reinhard, da Rocha, Le Bailly, Bouchet, Ferreira and Araújo2004; Le Bailly and Bouchet, Reference Le Bailly and Bouchet2006) have been found to be a successful way to detect these protozoa"
https://phys.org/news/2023-05-early-toilets-reveal-dysentery-testament.html
"A new analysis of ancient feces taken from two Jerusalem latrines dating back to the biblical Kingdom of Judah has uncovered traces of a single-celled microorganism Giardia duodenalis—a common cause of debilitating diarrhea in humans."
The latrine would have been upper class elite based on the archaeology of the structures around it.
The article goes on to say,
"Previous research has dated traces of the Entamoeba parasite, which also causes dysentery, as far back as Neolithic Greece over 4,000 years ago. Previous work has also shown that users of ancient Judean toilets were infected by other intestinal parasites including whipworm, tapeworm and pinworm.
This research was undertaken through a collaboration between the University of Cambridge, Tel Aviv University, and the Israel Antiquities Authority."
The paper here.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...-century-bce/FD98E6D61F8D264616547EA4EBED69E4
ELISA was the technique used to identify the parasite antigens."microscopy with immunofluorescent monoclonal antibodies (Faulkner et al., Reference Faulkner, Patton and Johnson1989; Le Bailly et al., Reference Le Bailly, Gonçalves, Harter-Lailheugue, Prodéo, Araujo and Bouchet2008) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) that use antibodies to detect antigens uniquely made by these protozoan organisms (Gonçalves et al., Reference Gonçalves, Araújo, Duarte, Pereira da Silva, Reinhard, Bouchet and Ferreira2002, Reference Gonçalves, Da Silva, de Andrade, Reinhard, da Rocha, Le Bailly, Bouchet, Ferreira and Araújo2004; Le Bailly and Bouchet, Reference Le Bailly and Bouchet2006) have been found to be a successful way to detect these protozoa"
