Black death was not spread by rat fleas, say researchers | Hacker News Reader

Black death was not spread by rat fleas, say researchers

theguardian.com

31 pointspessimizer6 comments

This doesn't sound like anything new. As I understand it, it is well known that there were three distinct forms of plague during the "black death" epidemic: Bubonic, pnuemonic, and septicemic.

Below are quotes from letter sent from the papal court at Avignon in 1348:

"It is said that the plague takes three forms. In the first people suffer an infection of the lungs, which leads to breathing difficulties. Whoever has this corruption or contamination to any extent cannot escape but will die within two days. Another form...in which boils erupt under the armpits,...a third form in which people of both sexes are attacked in the groin.

...

And this form is the most dangerous of all these terrible things, which is to say that it is the most contagious, for when one infected person dies everyone who saw him during his illness, visited him, had any dealings with him, or carried him to burial, immediately follows him, without any remedy." [1]

[1] Letter from Louis Heyligen of Beeringen (27 April 1348) , via "Horrox, Rosemary (1994). Black Death"

As usual, comments on HN are more interesting than the article. Thank you.

Interesting note: This is not sourced from a research paper, but a sound bite to build interest in a documentary airing this weekend.

While the source, Tim Brooks, seems credible [1], I will be interested when more actual information comes out.

[1] http://apps.who.int/whocc/Detail.aspx?cc_ref=UNK-122&cc_code...

Nothing revolutionary here. Wiki black death:

"Many modern scholars accept that the lethality of the Black Death stemmed from the combination of bubonic and pneumonic plague with other diseases and warn that every historical mention of 'pest' was not necessarily bubonic plague..."

So the plague doctor costumes that I'd heard were just for show actually served a useful purpose - to restrict the breathing of contaminated air?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_doctor

The actual bad smell of infected people was believed to be unhealthy, so afaik most plague masks were built to provide a "good" smell through herbs or incent, but it seems plausible that some of them helped nonetheless.

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