Malaria in bone. Hunting for Hemozoin

Malaria is known to have had—and still has—a massive impact on health. Although currently absent in the Netherlands, written records indicate that the disease was endemic, mainly in the Dutch coastal regions, from the 17th to the mid-20th century. It is likely that the disease was present in the medieval period as well, considering the environmental circumstances (e.g., low lying marshes and a high abundance of brackish water). However, as a result of the paucity of historical information concerning disease in this period, it is currently only speculative whether malaria was a medieval disease as well. This poster will present and discuss a new method to study the occurrence and impact of malaria in the medieval Netherlands. This method, pioneered by Dr. Jamie Inwood at Yale University and further developed by the authors, focuses on the detection of hemozoin, a waste product of the parasite, using MALDI-TOF-MS (matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry). Results of the initial research, using synthetic hemozoin, various MALDI-matrices, and different solvents, show that high-intensity signals of the characteristic 616 m/z peak can be obtained at low amounts. This suggests that the improved protocol is an effective and efficient way to detect archaeological hemozoin as amounts in human skeletal remains are likely to be low. Future research will apply this method to medieval bone samples to detect malaria in skeletal remains and in doing so will be able to study the spread and impact of medieval malaria.