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When Napoleon and his legion of multinational soldiers retreated from Russia in 1812 in the face of dwindling supplies and fierce Russian resistance, little did they know how much worse was yet to come. Related: 2,000-Year-Old Bones Undermine Myth About Columbus And Syphilis After extracting and analyzing ancient DNA from the teeth of 13 soldiers they instead found evidence the men suffered from a combination of paratyphoid caused by a strain of Salmonella enterica, and a relapsing fever caused by a bacterium called Borrelia recurrentis, which is transmitted by body lice . The analysis of a larger number of samples will be necessary to fully understand the spectrum of epidemic diseases that impacted the Napoleonic army during the Russian retreat," they write. "In light of our results, a reasonable scenario for the deaths of these soldiers would be a combination of fatigue, cold, and several diseases, including paratyphoid fever and louse-borne relapsing fever.""