Most assume that Black Death quickly ravaged the fourteenth century western world was a bacterial bubonic plague epidemic caused by flea bites and spread by rats. But the Black Death killed a high proportion of Scandinavians -- and where they lived was too cold for fleas to survive. A modern work gives us a clue into this mystery. The “Biology of Plagues” published by Cambridge University Press analyzed 2,500 years of plagues and concluded that the Black Death was caused by a viral hemorrhagic fever pandemic similar to Ebola. If this view is correct, the future medical and economic impacts from Ebola have been vastly underestimated. Authors Dr. Susan Scott, a demographer, and Dr. Christopher J. Duncan, a zoologist at the University of Liverpool point out that the Bible used the term “plague” to describe a catchall of afflictions resulting from divine displeasure. The researchers analyzed the “Four Ages of Plague”, including “Plague of Athens” from 430 to 427 BC that killed about a third of the city; “Plague of Justinian” from 542 to 592 AD and killed 10,000 a day in Constantinople; Black Plague from 1337 to 1340 AD that killed a third of Eurasia; and a series of plague outbreaks in Europe from 1350 to 1670 that killed about half a number of city populations.
Historical records of the Athenian plague paint a very similar picture to the Black Death and the accelerating Ebola pandemic. Like Ebola, the plague is believed to have originated in Africa and then travelled northward.
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http://bit.ly/1CbOaTA
Historical records of the Athenian plague paint a very similar picture to the Black Death and the accelerating Ebola pandemic. Like Ebola, the plague is believed to have originated in Africa and then travelled northward.
Read the rest here...
http://bit.ly/1CbOaTA
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