Scarlet Fever Bacterium Detected in 700-Year-Old Tooth

According to a statement released by the Eurac Research Institute for Mummy Studies, genetic material from Streptococcus pyogenes, the bacterium that causes throat infections, scarlet fever, and toxic shock syndrome, has been detected in a 700-year-old tooth in the collection of Bolivia's National Museum of Archaeology. It had been previously thought that the bacterium arrived in South America with Europeans. "We weren't looking for this pathogen specifically," said Frank Maizner of the Eurac Research Institute for Mummy Studies. The tooth came from the skull of a young man who lived between A.D. 1100 and 1450 in the arid Bolivian highlands....