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Thread ID: 136688	2014-04-01 08:14:00	London's lost Black Death graves	zqwerty (97)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1371720	2014-04-01 08:14:00	From Metafilter: www.reuters.com www.theguardian.com Source here: www.metafilter.com	zqwerty (97)
1371721	2014-04-02 05:59:00	Interesting find. I am more edumacated than I was before I read this. Airborne spread of the Black Death, rather than rat fleas - I guess in today's terms it's a bit like the SARS/H1N? 'epidemics', but possibly more treatable.	johcar (6283)
1371722	2014-04-02 19:34:00	I think that flees caused it is more likely as if it came from Asia and they only had slow old sailing ships then so it it was air born the entire crews would have been dead long before the ships arrived in Europe..	paulw (1826)
1371723	2014-04-02 22:29:00	Ok some quotes from the comments in Metafilter to clear up some issues and misconceptions: 1st quote: "I have to chime in and agree: not news in the least. Both Gottfried's account, and Philip Ziegler's very layman-friendly book "The Black Death" go into this in great detail. The Ziegler book dates to 1969. Moreover, it was noted even in the 14th century by chroniclers that the type of plague would vary depending on the season, and accounts of the time show they were aware of the three varieties, at least in a rudimentary fashion. If I remember right—and this is purely off memory, so please correct me if I've misremembered—the pneumonic version was much more likely to take hold in a community during the winter months, and would often trail off in the spring, being replaced by the bubonic version as the weather warmed. Septicæmic plague just seems to have been rotten luck to have show up, and was not nearly as common, perhaps because its virulence caused it to burn out too quickly to keep spreading. The Black Death is one of those subjects I keep getting dawn back to, and was always a favorite to go over in European history classes. There's something just so horrifyingly mesmerizing to imagine losing one third of the population. And to really rub salt into the wounds, it tended to recur across Europe in cycles of a couple of decades, cruelly killing off more population just as they were reaching an age to bear children. Vast swaths of Europe ended up reclaimed by the forest as farms and communities simply vanished. posted by los pantalones del muerte at 6:30 PM on March 31 [2 favorites]" 2nd quote: "Jesus, that article is terrible. Yes, we've known for a very long time that there's three means of transmitting Yersinia pestis (flea bites, contact, droplet inhalation) and three different manifestations (bubonic, septicemic, pneumonic). Untreated bubonic plague can result in the organism breaking into the bloodstream, producing septicemic plague. Sometimes the organisms travel to the lungs, where they are be transmitted to other hosts' lungs via coughing up droplets of infectious sputum. There hasn't been a pneumonic plague case in the US since 1924, but there's a couple thousand cases of plague a year worldwide, some of which are pneumonic. The most recent I'm aware of was in Madagascar in late 2013/early 2014. CDC plague overview and FAQ. Handwashing and staying away from obviously sick animals and people are good ideas even if you're not worried about the Black Death. (Pneumonic plague patients are pretty easy to avoid, since they're generally in a state of complete collapse. Bioterrorists are another story.) posted by gingerest at 8:18 PM on March 31 [5 favorites]"	zqwerty (97)
1371724	2014-04-03 00:30:00	I think that flees caused it is more likely as if it came from Asia and they only had slow old sailing ships then so it it was air born the entire crews would have been dead long before the ships arrived in Europe.. hefenfelth.wordpress.com You mean like the plague ships of old then, exactly what was happening back in the good old days. I dont thinks these things had a 100% infection or mortality rate. otherwise we wouldnt be here	1101 (13337)
1371725	2014-04-03 03:21:00	I think that flees caused it is more likely as if it came from Asia and they only had slow old sailing ships then so it it was air born the entire crews would have been dead long before the ships arrived in Europe.. You forget that ocean air was meant to be good for you :-p	the_bogan (9949)
1371726	2014-04-03 04:45:00	You forget that ocean air was meant to be good for you :-p Tell that to the passengers who get Nora virus on cruise liners.. :-)	paulw (1826)
1371727	2014-04-03 20:10:00	Tell that to the passengers who get Nora virus on cruise liners.. :-) Note the past tense.... :-) Things were different back then. Sheesh, stuff is even in colour now.	the_bogan (9949)
1371728	2014-04-03 20:20:00	Note the past tense.... :-) Things were different back then. Sheesh, stuff is even in colour now. You mean like these 1905 color photos from Russia www.loc.gov	paulw (1826)
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