科学家通过分析中世纪手稿的羊皮纸，成功提取并测序了羊痘病毒的DNA，重建了该病毒至少3500年的演化过程1。这项研究发表在《科学进展》期刊上，表明档案馆和图书馆中保存的古代文献可能蕴含着过去动物疾病爆发的遗传痕迹1。
都柏林大学学院的研究生Louis L'Hôte表示："这些基因组帮助我们理解这些病原体是如何演化的，以及它们如何影响过去的社会"1。
羊痘至少在3500年间影响了欧亚地区的羊群1。最早的书面记载出现在公元一世纪的罗马账户中1。中世纪时期，法国、西班牙和英国的农业文献和账簿中频繁提及羊群中的"痘疮"或"天花"1。疾病的流行模式随时间波动：17世纪法国的羊痘爆发似乎有所下降，但18至19世纪频繁爆发重新出现，并造成了高死亡率1。英国在1847年首次经历了羊痘复发1。
Scientists have extracted and sequenced DNA of the sheeppox virus from parchment in medieval manuscripts, reconstructing the pathogen's evolutionary history spanning at least 3,500 years across Eurasia.1 The research, published in Science Advances, demonstrates that archival materials and library collections may preserve genetic traces of past animal disease outbreaks.1
The earliest written account of sheeppox infection appears in Roman records from the first century.1 Medieval agricultural texts and ledgers from France, Spain, and England frequently documented outbreaks of "pustules" or "pox" among sheep flocks.1 Disease patterns shifted over time: occurrences appeared to decline in seventeenth-century France, but resurged with high mortality rates during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with England experiencing its first recorded sheeppox resurgence in 1847.1 According to Louis L'Hôte, a graduate researcher at University College Dublin involved in the study, "these genomes help us understand how these pathogens evolved and how they affected past societies."1
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