Remembering St. Louis Individual—structural violence and acute bacterial infections in a historical anatomical collection

Abstract

Incomplete documentary evidence, variable biomolecular preservation, and limited skeletal responses have hindered assessment of acute infections in the past. This study was initially developed to explore the diagnostic potential of dental calculus to identify infectious diseases, however, the breadth and depth of information gained from a particular individual, St. Louis Individual (St.LI), enabled an individualized assessment and demanded broader disciplinary introspection of ethical research conduct. Here, we document the embodiment of structural violence in a 23-year-old Black and/or African American male, who died of lobar pneumonia in 1930s St. Louis, Missouri. St.LI exhibits evidence of systemic poor health, including chronic oral infections and a probable tuberculosis infection. Metagenomic sequencing of dental calculus recovered three pre-antibiotic era pathogen genomes, which likely contributed to the lobar pneumonia cause of death (CoD): Klebsiella pneumoniae (13.8X); Acinetobacter nosocomialis (28.4X); and Acinetobacter junii (30.1X). Ante- and perimortem evidence of St.LI’s lived experiences chronicle the poverty, systemic racism, and race-based structural violence experienced by marginalized communities in St. Louis, which contributed to St.LI’s poor health, CoD, anatomization, and inclusion in the Robert J. Terry Anatomical Collection. These same embodied inequalities continue to manifest as health disparities affecting many contemporary communities in the United States.

Metagenomic and paleopathological analyses of a historic documented collection explore ancient dental calculus as a diagnostic tool

“…It was also done as a posthumous mechanism of recognition of these skeletal individuals as research participants. We also recognize the once-living individuals they represent vs. their scientific objectification and dehumanization during collection preparation, curation, and subsequent research 53,76,84 , though, we also recognize that ethical and respectful treatment of deceased individuals is cross-culturally variable 85 . Acknowledging skeletal individuals as interlocutors in research, both case study-based and population-level, follows a growing ethical precedent in biological anthropology 53,81,86,87 .…”

The genetic legacy of African Americans from Catoctin Furnace

“…Our objective is to contribute to the restoration of memories of a past community whose legacy was intentionally obscured and to create an avenue for living people to learn about their ancestors. We followed guidelines for the ethical analysis of the DNA of historical and living people (29,30), including consultation with stakeholder groups, as emphasized in recent discussions on the future of studies involving the remains of African Americans (31)(32)(33)(34)(35). On the basis of interactions with stakeholders, we believe there is interest among African Americans and the public to harness aDNA to learn about historical connections to people who lived in the past and to leverage this technology to develop accurate methods to identify genetic relationships, many of which were previously unknown.…”

Uncovering the Holocene roots of contemporary disease-scapes: bringing archaeology into One Health

“…With more standardized methods, targeted enrichment techniques and high-throughput sequencing, ancient genome analysis has allowed researchers to explore human and animal phylogeographic patterns [ 82 ] as well as the reconstruction of ancient pathogen genomes. These methods have been applied to Yersinia pestis [ 83 ], Mycobacterium tuberculosis [ 80 ], human herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) [ 84 ], the pandemic influenza strain of 1918 [ 85 ], Salmonella enterica [ 86 ], Klebsiella pneumoniae [ 87 ] and more. Many of these pathogens can infect multiple species that have long and close relationships with humans (i.e.…”