It was said that the hero of two nations – Polish and American – was killed by typhoid or pneumonia. Polish scientists have decided to settle the dispute. They have examined Tadeusz Kosciuszko’s heart and are one hundred percent sure what disease more than two hundred years ago led to his death.

The results of this innovative research were published in the international scientific journal Microbial Cell Factories. Researchers led by Prof. Michal Witt of the Institute of Human Genetics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Poznan and Tadeusz Dobosz of the Department of Forensic Medicine at the Medical University of Wroclaw conducted a molecular study of materials in direct contact with Tadeusz Kosciuszko’s heart. The heart of our national hero is kept in Warsaw, at the Royal Castle. The scientists subjected to the study not the organ itself, but DNA samples they managed to obtain from a wooden plate, a piece of linen and wax that had direct contact with Kosciuszko’s heart. What was discovered?

The researchers write that they were able to discover the genome of the Cutibacterium acnes bacteria, the presence of which may indicate that Thaddeus Kosciuszko suffered from endocarditis, an inflammation of the inside of the heart, which in turn caused a rapid and fatal illness. No traces of typhoid fever were found in the materials examined, so this hypothesis must be considered effectively disproven.

For a long time, scientists were convinced that if not typhoid, then pneumonia killed Kosciuszko. In this regard, it can be considered that they were partly right, because endocarditis could have resulted in such complications as just pneumonia, or rather, pulmonary thromboembolism. Endocarditis is characterized by fever, chills, shortness of breath, symptoms that can easily be attributed to pneumonia as well.

Thaddeus Kosciuszko died in Switzerland at the age of 71 after he fell from his horse and contracted a severe cold. His body two years after his death, in 1819, was brought back to the country and rested in Wawel Castle. Later his heart was removed and went through various vicissitudes, finally ending up in Warsaw in 1927, where again with many perturbations it is kept to this day. However, it didn’t have to be that way at all: after the fall of the Warsaw Uprising, the safe with Kosciuszko’s heart lay in the ruins of St. John’s Cathedral for two years. After it was found, the Warsaw Archcathedral took care of it, and it has been in its current location at the Royal Castle since 1983.

Author: Paweł Skutecki