te tetted e tettetett tettet, te tettetett tettek tettese

[Esternial]

Last interesting factoid: contrary to the belief that you contracted plague and died shortly after, the reality seemed to be that the disease took 37 days to manifest itself fully. For the first 12 days, you weren't contagious. Then for the next 20 days, you were highly contagious. Then, the last 5-7 days, you manifested the virulent symptoms and died.

Assuming that we're talking about Yersinia pestis-associated plague, I think that rather depended on the type of plague.

Yersinia pestis causes three different types of plague, which are sometimes confused.

The first type is the famous bubonic plague; this has an incubation rate of 2-6 days, with death usually occurring between 10-14 days after infection. This is typically spread by infected fleas. The mortality rate for infected individuals is about 40-60% if left untreated, but several effective treatments exist these days.

The second type is pneumonic plague; while much rarer than bubonic plague, this is the type usually held to be behind stories of apparently healthy individuals suddenly dropping dead, and has a mortality rate of over 90% if left untreated. This is a lung infection typically spread by breathing in infected air droplets exhaled by other infected individuals.

The third, and rarest, type is septicaemic plague. This is a blood infection, typically caused by an open wound coming into contact with infected tissue. Untreated, it has a 100% mortality rate, and treatment has to occur within 24 hours of infection; it can kill within hours of symptoms presenting.

The 'Black Death' was most likely a combination of all three of these; hence the accounts of most of the infected dying after developing the characteristic buboes of bubonic plague, with the stories of previously healthy people dying overnight likely relating to victims of pneumonic plague or speticaemic plague.



Finally, all of that reading about late classical and early medieval plague comes in handy...

Oh darn, beat me to it.

[Tsaraine]

I heard that apparently the plague is alive and well ... in the prisons of Madagascar. I can't recall where I heard it, and it may be out of date by now ... nor do I know what kind of plague it is/was.

Still, closing Antananarivo's ports won't help with that one!

I also read somewhere about a theory that the Black Death has been misdiagnosed by modern scholars, that it was actually Ebola. Which I'm not sure I believe, it sounds kinda fringe-y, an attempt to put the name of a modern terror on a medieval one.

[The Archbishop]

SHUT
DOWN
EVERYTHING

[Val Halla]

I heard that apparently the plague is alive and well ... in the prisons of Madagascar. I can't recall where I heard it, and it may be out of date by now ... nor do I know what kind of plague it is/was.

Still, closing Antananarivo's ports won't help with that one!

I also read somewhere about a theory that the Black Death has been misdiagnosed by modern scholars, that it was actually Ebola. Which I'm not sure I believe, it sounds kinda fringe-y, an attempt to put the name of a modern terror on a medieval one.

What about the zombies and ebola? Wasn't that a thing that people believed?

[Immoren]

Axe to grind.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Last interesting factoid: contrary to the belief that you contracted plague and died shortly after, the reality seemed to be that the disease took 37 days to manifest itself fully. For the first 12 days, you weren't contagious. Then for the next 20 days, you were highly contagious. Then, the last 5-7 days, you manifested the virulent symptoms and died.

Assuming that we're talking about Yersinia pestis-associated plague, I think that rather depended on the type of plague.

Yersinia pestis causes three different types of plague, which are sometimes confused.

The first type is the famous bubonic plague; this has an incubation rate of 2-6 days, with death usually occurring between 10-14 days after infection. This is typically spread by infected fleas. The mortality rate for infected individuals is about 40-60% if left untreated, but several effective treatments exist these days.

The second type is pneumonic plague; while much rarer than bubonic plague, this is the type usually held to be behind stories of apparently healthy individuals suddenly dropping dead, and has a mortality rate of over 90% if left untreated. This is a lung infection typically spread by breathing in infected air droplets exhaled by other infected individuals.

The third, and rarest, type is septicaemic plague. This is a blood infection, typically caused by an open wound coming into contact with infected tissue. Untreated, it has a 100% mortality rate, and treatment has to occur within 24 hours of infection; it can kill within hours of symptoms presenting.

The 'Black Death' was most likely a combination of all three of these; hence the accounts of most of the infected dying after developing the characteristic buboes of bubonic plague, with the stories of previously healthy people dying overnight likely relating to victims of pneumonic plague or speticaemic plague.



Finally, all of that reading about late classical and early medieval plague comes in handy...

Of which I'm aware, Arch. The thing is that since 2010, several scientists have been reapproaching what is known about the outbreak and our understanding of the epidemic may not be complete.

Although strains of Y. Pestis have been found in DNA from remains, the investigators think that what happened in the Middle Ages may have been caused by a now extinct strain of Y. Pestis. This is thought because of the virulence with which it spread, and the speed. From analyzing latter recurrences of the disease in India and Hong Kong, and mapping the spread, Y. Pestis took 40 years to spread throughout Hong Kong, while the plague spread through 14th century Europe in what, a little over 3 years?

In any case, investigation is ongoing, something I pointed out in the post you quoted.

Fun point: I watched a few videos that attribute the contagion to gerbils, instead of the black rats. A ridiculous idea but it seems some believe it.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

I heard that apparently the plague is alive and well ... in the prisons of Madagascar. I can't recall where I heard it, and it may be out of date by now ... nor do I know what kind of plague it is/was.

Still, closing Antananarivo's ports won't help with that one!

I also read somewhere about a theory that the Black Death has been misdiagnosed by modern scholars, that it was actually Ebola. Which I'm not sure I believe, it sounds kinda fringe-y, an attempt to put the name of a modern terror on a medieval one.

Twigg posited that it could have been anthrax. An ebolalike virus has also been posited as culprit, but this is all supposition. It was plague, as remains dating from the period have been found to contain strains of Y. Pestis in their DNA.

[Tsaraine]

I heard that apparently the plague is alive and well ... in the prisons of Madagascar. I can't recall where I heard it, and it may be out of date by now ... nor do I know what kind of plague it is/was.

Still, closing Antananarivo's ports won't help with that one!

I also read somewhere about a theory that the Black Death has been misdiagnosed by modern scholars, that it was actually Ebola. Which I'm not sure I believe, it sounds kinda fringe-y, an attempt to put the name of a modern terror on a medieval one.

What about the zombies and ebola? Wasn't that a thing that people believed?

If you mean "people thought/think Ebola causes zombies", well, people are morons and zombies aren't real. The modern zombie myth includes it beginning with/being a form of infectious disease, so I can see where idiots would get the idea, but honestly it's the first I've heard of it.

Medieval England - and presumably the rest of medieval Europe - did have a concept of the malevolent risen dead (revenants), but there are important differences between medieval revenants and modern zombies. A revenant was the body of someone wicked or evil, often a stranger or foreigner, not mindless but actively malevolent.

I think I recall something vaguely about fears of the risen dead during the Black Death - because there were more dead people, and more contact with dead people, and more digging up temporary graves to cart the dead people to the latest plague pit. So when the gravediggers found a corpse looking suspiciously plump (gasses from decomposition), or not as rotten as it should be (decomposition is weird), or suchlike, they assumed omg malevolent walking corpses because, well, life already resembled a horror movie. Similar explanation behind the vampire myth.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Well, the thing is that until recently, it was believed that the transmission rate had to do with the spread of the black rats that were infested with the fleas that carried the disease. But apparently, blaming the black rats was a mistake. Some investigators do not think that the rats were to blame for the spread of the disease. Most definitely, because of the speed with which it spread, it had to be human to human contact that did it.

I think I read something, that some theorized that it may have actually gone airborne.

http://www.archaeology.org/news/1950-14 ... h-airborne

Pneumonic plague was airborne. Yup.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

What about the zombies and ebola? Wasn't that a thing that people believed?

If you mean "people thought/think Ebola causes zombies", well, people are morons and zombies aren't real. The modern zombie myth includes it beginning with/being a form of infectious disease, so I can see where idiots would get the idea, but honestly it's the first I've heard of it.

Medieval England - and presumably the rest of medieval Europe - did have a concept of the malevolent risen dead (revenants), but there are important differences between medieval revenants and modern zombies. A revenant was the body of someone wicked or evil, often a stranger or foreigner, not mindless but actively malevolent.

I think I recall something vaguely about fears of the risen dead during the Black Death - because there were more dead people, and more contact with dead people, and more digging up temporary graves to cart the dead people to the latest plague pit. So when the gravediggers found a corpse looking suspiciously plump (gasses from decomposition), or not as rotten as it should be (decomposition is weird), or suchlike, they assumed omg malevolent walking corpses because, well, life already resembled a horror movie. Similar explanation behind the vampire myth.

The treatment of corpses suspected of being revenants was swift and rather gruesomely brutal.

[Tsaraine]

So what has you learning about the plague anyway, Nanatsu? 'Tis an odd field of study in this day and age, surely.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

So what has you learning about the plague anyway, Nanatsu? 'Tis an odd field of study in this day and age, surely.

Actually it came, tangentially, from some documentaries and reading I was doing on the impact massive casualties had in the art of the Middle Ages.

[Tsaraine]

Fair enough, 'tis interesting. It's a pity we don't have better records from the 15th-century Americas, to name another place (and a great many cultures) fundamentally changed by massive casualties from disease.

Oh, and if you're interested in cultural approaches to death and/or morbid art, the British Museum had a nice collection of medieval Tibetan stuff. Turns out medieval Tibet looked kind of scary.

Unless it was the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Whenever I go overseas I visit museums, and it seems they've gotten a bit confused in my head.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Fair enough, 'tis interesting. It's a pity we don't have better records from the 15th-century Americas, to name another place (and a great many cultures) fundamentally changed by massive casualties from disease.

I wonder if any records were destroyed by conquistadors. But yes, it's interesting. The plague changed Europe, not just socially, but economically. It truly spelled the demise of feudalism and from the ashes, we saw the Continent's rebirth. Europe adapted.

[Tsaraine]

Fair enough, 'tis interesting. It's a pity we don't have better records from the 15th-century Americas, to name another place (and a great many cultures) fundamentally changed by massive casualties from disease.

I wonder if any records were destroyed by conquistadors. But yes, it's interesting. The plague changed Europe, not just socially, but economically. It truly spelled the demise of feudalism and from the ashes, we saw the Continent's rebirth. Europe adapted.

If you mean mesoamerican codices, then yes, a lot of them were burned. But I was also thinking of non-literate cultures and the ones where disease outpaced European contact. It is a pity anthropologists don't have time machines.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

I wonder if any records were destroyed by conquistadors. But yes, it's interesting. The plague changed Europe, not just socially, but economically. It truly spelled the demise of feudalism and from the ashes, we saw the Continent's rebirth. Europe adapted.

If you mean mesoamerican codices, then yes, a lot of them were burned. But I was also thinking of non-literate cultures and the ones where disease outpaced European contact. It is a pity anthropologists don't have time machines.

Can you imagine having the ability to go back in time to ask, say, Guy de Chauliac, what was happening around him in Avingnon during the height of the plague? Or talk to Michaelangelo as he was painting the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel? Woah. Awesome.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Or know what became of the Etruscans? Or the Inca?

[The Grim Reaper]

If you mean mesoamerican codices, then yes, a lot of them were burned. But I was also thinking of non-literate cultures and the ones where disease outpaced European contact. It is a pity anthropologists don't have time machines.

Can you imagine having the ability to go back in time to ask, say, Guy de Chauliac, what was happening around him in Avingnon during the height of the plague? Or talk to Michaelangelo as he was painting the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel? Woah. Awesome.

The second sounds cool - I'd rather not do the first, though. Don't think my immune system would be up for it. Knowing my luck, I'd die of the common flu before the plague ever got me.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Can you imagine having the ability to go back in time to ask, say, Guy de Chauliac, what was happening around him in Avingnon during the height of the plague? Or talk to Michaelangelo as he was painting the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel? Woah. Awesome.

The second sounds cool - I'd rather not do the first, though. Don't think my immune system would be up for it. Knowing my luck, I'd die of the common flu before the plague ever got me.

You can always bring some Cipro or tetracycline with you, in case you get sick.

[The Grim Reaper]

The second sounds cool - I'd rather not do the first, though. Don't think my immune system would be up for it. Knowing my luck, I'd die of the common flu before the plague ever got me.

You can always bring some Cipro or tetracycline with you, in case you get sick.

xP Now that's an idea, right there.

I'm getting interested, nowadays, in studying cultural and media histories. Doing a subject by the name of 'Media Histories' at the moment - the lecturer did a bit of time lamenting the inability to preserve non-European oral traditions. That being said, there are examples of people like the Brothers Grimm, who did an excellent job founding modern folklore studies and preserving what was later speculated to be stories that dated back to the PIE culture.

One of the greatest problems with preserving oral traditions is that translating to modern mediums is so difficult, too - musical anthropology relatively recently started to record accurate transcriptions of folk music, with the help of the grammaphone. It wasn't because European written music was lacking, but because grammaphone recordings made the huge simplifications anthropologists were doing, on purpose (to fit folk music into the contemporary musical forms), indefensible.

So, there are many anthropologists who would give an arm and a leg for a time machine, but there are some bright sparks out there who have managed to do what is virtually the impossible - folklore studies in particular, piecing together a picture of PIE culture from the work of the Brothers Grimm, is an extraordinary interdisciplinary slug.

[Hurdegaryp]

You can always bring some Cipro or tetracycline with you, in case you get sick.

xP Now that's an idea, right there.

I'm getting interested, nowadays, in studying cultural and media histories. Doing a subject by the name of 'Media Histories' at the moment - the lecturer did a bit of time lamenting the inability to preserve non-European oral traditions. That being said, there are examples of people like the Brothers Grimm, who did an excellent job founding modern folklore studies and preserving what was later speculated to be stories that dated back to the PIE culture.

One of the greatest problems with preserving oral traditions is that translating to modern mediums is so difficult, too - musical anthropology relatively recently started to record accurate transcriptions of folk music, with the help of the grammaphone. It wasn't because European written music was lacking, but because grammaphone recordings made the huge simplifications anthropologists were doing, on purpose (to fit folk music into the contemporary musical forms), indefensible.

So, there are many anthropologists who would give an arm and a leg for a time machine, but there are some bright sparks out there who have managed to do what is virtually the impossible - folklore studies in particular, piecing together a picture of PIE culture from the work of the Brothers Grimm, is an extraordinary interdisciplinary slug.

And here I was thinking to just enter TET and do what I usually do here, only to find myself looking up the Proto-Indo-Europeans on Wikipedia. Learning something new was not in the planning, but here we are.

[The Serbian Empire]

Or know what became of the Etruscans? Or the Inca?

Etruscans? Forced to blend with the Romans. The Inca? I think that illnesses took them out.

[The Grim Reaper]

And here I was thinking to just enter TET and do what I usually do here, only to find myself looking up the Proto-Indo-Europeans on Wikipedia. Learning something new was not in the planning, but here we are.

I do my best, once or twice a year.

[The Archregimancy]

Fair enough, 'tis interesting. It's a pity we don't have better records from the 15th-century Americas, to name another place (and a great many cultures) fundamentally changed by massive casualties from disease.

I wonder if any records were destroyed by conquistadors.

Neither the Aztecs nor the Incas had writing systems.

However, we do have important post-conquest codices - particularly for the Aztecs - that reveal a considerable amount of information about pre-conquest Mesoamerican society, alongside social reaction to the onset of smallpox.

The Florentine Codex is a particularly important document here, and contains a wealth of vitally important ethnographic data collected in the immediate aftermath of the conquest of New Spain, complemented by extensive illustrations.

If anyone would like to take a look, the entirety of the Florentine Codex has been digitised: https://www.wdl.org/en/item/10096/view/1/1/


Edit:

See also the Codex Mendoza

[The Serbian Empire]

And here I was thinking to just enter TET and do what I usually do here, only to find myself looking up the Proto-Indo-Europeans on Wikipedia. Learning something new was not in the planning, but here we are.

I do my best, once or twice a year.

And I'll put up some discussion on tornado formation with the first tornado watch of the year up in my neck of the woods. I pumice, I mean promise.