Texts on new Black Death theories

[Melvin Loh]

Does anybody know of any recent texts which speculate that the Black Death was actually ebola instead of bubonic plague as has traditionally commonly accepted by historians ? These revisionist texts have stated that the Black Death which wiped out 1/3 of Europe's population in the Middle Ages couldn't have been bubonic plague, due to its extremely fast spread (too fast by far for rats and fleas to be the vectors) into even remote regions, while the symptoms were supposedly more consistent with Ebola.

[wkwillis]

Does anybody know of any recent texts which speculate that the Black Death was actually ebola instead of bubonic plague as has traditionally commonly accepted by historians ? These revisionist texts have stated that the Black Death which wiped out 1/3 of Europe's population in the Middle Ages couldn't have been bubonic plague, due to its extremely fast spread (too fast by far for rats and fleas to be the vectors) into even remote regions, while the symptoms were supposedly more consistent with Ebola.

Bubonic Plague you get directly from fleas that get it from rodents. Pneumonic Plague is when it has been passed from person to person enough to mutate to a aerosel form, spread by breathing. Bubonic Plague is only thirty percent lethal. Pneumonic Plague is 90% lethal. Bubonic Plague gives you swellings in your lymph glands like the ones under your chin that swell when you are sick. These form big black necrotic abcesses that hurt and eventually burst and either kill you or don't. Pneumonic Plague is the kind where your feel ok at breakfast, sick by lunch, and dead by dinner. No kidding, that fast.
That's the way it worked in the most recent outbreaks around 1900.

[Faeelin]

You mean, "the vector for the plague was too slow, but for a bloodborne disease it was fast enough"?

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

Does anybody know of any recent texts which speculate that the Black Death was actually ebola instead of bubonic plague as has traditionally commonly accepted by historians ? These revisionist texts have stated that the Black Death which wiped out 1/3 of Europe's population in the Middle Ages couldn't have been bubonic plague, due to its extremely fast spread (too fast by far for rats and fleas to be the vectors) into even remote regions, while the symptoms were supposedly more consistent with Ebola.

Good grief, where on earth did you read that? The reports from the time are utterly consistent with Bubonic plague.

It did not spread "too fast", it took several years to sweep over Europe. Ebola is too virulent to spread over such a wide geographic area.

Never underestimate the ability of rats to get into everything, everywhere.

[Adam Parsons]

Granted, I'm not an expert on viral biology, but wasn't there some research done a few years bck that shows that Ebola tends not to fare well outside of tropical climates, which medieval Europe (and present-day Europe and most of America) are not?

[Admiral Matt]

I did hear something recently about it not being the same disease we call the bubonic plague today. I heard nothing about ebola being involved, or why exactly they thought it was not our plague.

[NapoleonXIV]

Good grief, where on earth did you read that? The reports from the time are utterly consistent with Bubonic plague.

It did not spread "too fast", it took several years to sweep over Europe. Ebola is too virulent to spread over such a wide geographic area.

Never underestimate the ability of rats to get into everything, everywhere.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/blackdeath_010730.html

What do you mean by "too virulent" ? That it will kill eveyone before they can transmit it?

[Straha]

it might not have been ebola but it could have been some other related disease.

[wkwillis]

A guy had ebola. He was bleeding out on a little turboprop airplane on the way to the hospital and the guy sitting next to him didn't get it.
Pneumonic plague and aerosol diseases in general spread better in warm, wet, unsanitary environments. Central heating kills aerosols by dehydrating them, hot water and soap dispensing bathrooms wash away and lyse organisms, etc. Paid sick leave is also an affective and not particularly costly disease control method for aerosol diseases.

[NapoleonXIV]

organisms, etc. Paid sick leave is also an affective and not particularly costly disease control method for aerosol diseases.

Try telling that to most bosses. I knew one guy who honestly said that he thought the best way to stop disease spread among employees was to dock pay on anyone who got sick.

[Saladin]

The articles being referred to were some molecular biology work done at eh University of Liverpool a couple of years back. There are a few links relating to this "haemorrhagic plague" kicking around on the net.

Here are a few

http://www.hero.ac.uk/sites/hero/uk/research/archives/2001/bubonic_plague_is_innocen1184.cfm

/www.liv.ac.uk/precinct/Oct2001/12.html

http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/blackdeath/default.htm

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994149


For what its worth, the research is interesting but not totally convincing to me.


All the best


Chris

[Torqumada]

Ebola kills way too fast to spread far. That is why the outbreaks in Africa can be controlled so easily. The people that get it die and they don't go far. It took the Black Death 3 years to spread across Europe. All the desciptions are consistent with Bubonic plague, even with the 3 different forms of it and not ebola. Ebola is a hemorrhagic fever, which is denoted by massive bleeding. That isn't consistent with the reports from the Black Death.

Torqumada

[robertp6165]

Good grief, where on earth did you read that? The reports from the time are utterly consistent with Bubonic plague.

It did not spread "too fast", it took several years to sweep over Europe. Ebola is too virulent to spread over such a wide geographic area.

Never underestimate the ability of rats to get into everything, everywhere.

Also remember that in the unsanitary conditions of the middle ages, PEOPLE had fleas too. Panic-stricken people fleeing from towns where plague had broken out without a doubt spread it to the towns through which they traveled.

[Saladin]

Torquemada

Just for the record, I agree entirely. I can't see the need to posit some unknown haemmorhagic fever to explain the spread of the plagues in the 1340-1360 period.

The researchers seem to have neglected that, at the beginning of the epidemic, that there were probably more people "in transit" than at any prior period in history.

I posted the links because I knew where they were -- having had to spot research and teach a unit on the black death earlier in the year


All the best


Chris