Thursday

[nightdog_barks]

Hazy sun; even if it is still hot, you can tell the season is changing because of the angle of the light.

From the Guardian, here's a fascinating article about how rats probably weren't really responsible for the Black Death. I know, I know, cheerful, right? But the writer has the kind of historical details that just make my brain light up. The archaeologist used records from the Court of Hustings -- wills made and then enacted during the plague years.

From the article:
John of Reading, a monk in Westminster, left one of the few witness accounts. He described deaths happening so fast there was "death without sorrow, marriage without affection, self-imposed penance, want without poverty, and flight without escape".

Great writing! And a real downer. But seriously great writing.

Comments

[blackmare]

That is simply terrifying. We like to think such things are safely confined to the past, but you know ...

[nightdog_barks]

Yeah, that two-thirds mortality rate brings the word horrific to whole new levels. No wonder people would have thought it was the end of the world.

[silverjackal]

It's a fascinating article, but I dont' buy the argument. Spread of plague by rats doesn't imply that there would be large numbers of rat remains to be found necessarily -- all it would take would be an increase in the number of fleas on the existing rats, and fleas don't show well in the archaeological record. And rats (and their fleas) were *everywhere*. Could it *not* have been Bubonic plague? Possibly -- that argument gets batted around periodically, and it's possible.

However, Bubonic plague still exists, matches the symptoms described at the time, and has a highly contageous pneumonic form. I'm no expert, but I'd bet it's still Yersinia pestis, and that rodent borne fleas were still the starting point, unless they have better proof otherwise. (For that matter it's still possible to contract -- and die from -- Bubonic plague. Ironically your odds are better in Third World nations, where the doctors see the ailment somewhat regularly, diagnose it, and prescribe the appropriate antibiotics. One ill traveler in the U.S. succumbed relatively recently because his doctors didn't know what they were looking at before it was too late.)

[nightdog_barks]

I know, I kept thinking about the fleas the whole time I was reading the article! *g* A friend on LJ commented that a theory s/he had heard was that the Black Plague was actually a strain of Ebola, which I thought was very interesting just to think about.

[silverjackal]

People are a little too fond of speculating without examining the facts. There is another form of plague (septicemic plague) that would produce symptoms similar to those of Ebola. It's perfectly well known, and *still* a form of Yersinia pestis (which you have to give credit for being a damnably flexible infectious agent).

Could it have been something other than Yersinia? Yes, though given the evidence it's unlikely. Could it have been Ebola? Very, very *unlikely*. The original transmission vector is *fruit* bats (not the European insectivorous species), which then infect animals which touch the fruit bats have dropped (the infectious vector is the saliva). Ebola is deadly in primates, swine, and deer. Humans contracted the disease from contact with the other animals (mostly prey species/bush meat -- because primates are regularly consumed in Africa). All of this doesn't point to something that could have appeared and disappeared like that in Europe. In addition, the initial infectious wave of such deadly, highly contagious diseases is usually *highly* lethal, and then subsequent waves become less intense. The initial Zaire wave of Ebola in 1976 was the most deadly encountered, with subsequent outbreaks declining in impact. This would indicate (circumstantially) that it was the earliest -- and previous waves of infection in the area would certainly have been recorded.

In short? Ebola as a postulate is fairly absurd, as I haven't noticed colonies of fruit bats in northern Europe.

[aries_ascendant]

Have you read The Hot Zone?

There was an Ebola outbreak in Virginia that was lethal to monkeys but not humans. I haven't read it yet, but I've heard a lot about it. From what I've heard, I think you might like it.