Re: Black Death timeline

On Thu, 13 Nov 2008 09:35:28 -0000, "John Briggs"
<john.briggs4@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Eric Stevens wrote:
On Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:25:28 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans <gans@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

SolomonW <SolomonW@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > wrote:
In article <gfdcpi$4da$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, gans@xxxxxxxxx says...
SolomonW <SolomonW@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > wrote:
In article <gf9sth$4at$9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, gans@xxxxxxxxx
says...
SolomonW <SolomonW@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > wrote:

Quarantine was the only successful method to work in medieval
times, yet how could quarantine work if rats were carriers?

Curious that you mention it. But the Italians were aware of
contagion. At one town in northern Italy (I can't check my
books now, not being home) a ship carrying sick sailors was
quarantined. Though it was allowed to tie up at the pier,
guards were set and nobody was allowed on or off the ship.

The rat guard for lines hadn't yet been invented. You know
the rest.



Showing rats could carry it but in the Village of Eyam why did
the rats not carry it to the surrounding areas?

I don't understand the reference. Eyam sounds like
it is English. What's that got to do with Northern
Italy?



Oh it is a famous story of a brave village.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/eyam_and_the_great_plague_of_166.htm

Thanks. That's interesting.

By the way, the story contains the clue as to how the plague
spread in 1348 right there in the third paragraph.

I wonder if that is really a valid conclusion? Did the tailor actually
note "Received parcel of material containing fleas bearing the
plague"?

Did he even note that the material contained fleas? For that matter,
did any information of this kind survive across some 340 years?

I suspect that someone more recently has hazarded a guess at the whole
scenario. This won't stop people quoting the story as though it has
been confirmed that this is how it actually happened.

You are the only person who doesn't accept that this is what actually
happened.

Not so.

http://www.survivors-mad-dog.org.uk/MDEyam01.html says:

"There is no single, universally accepted, account of the origins of
the Eyam plague. The first detailed histories of the outbreak were
not written until the 1700s, and not all of the earliest accounts
are now seen as reliable. However, most historians now accept
that the Black Death (the 'bubonic plague') arrived in Eyam when
infected cloth was delivered to the house of the village tailor,
in late August or September. The cloth was infested with the rat
fleas now known to be responsible for the spread of the disease".

[ .... ]

"The first Eyam resident to fall victim to the plague was George
Viccars, the assistant to Alexander Hadfield, who had ordered
the cloth — most likely from suppliers in London. The infection
spread rapidly through the house, claiming the lives of Viccars,
his two stepsons, his employer, and his closest neighbours. "

The authors of http://tinyurl.com/5qov3q wrote of Eyam:

"Detailed examination of the data indicates that there were actually
two outbreaks of which the first was relatively mild".

[ .... ]

"Further the quarantine could do nothing to prevent the travel of
rats and could do little to prevent the spread of disease to other
communities".

Then http://www.derbyshireuk.net/eyam.html tells us:

"In 1665 the Plague was raging in London. A taylor from Eyam by the
name of George Viccars ordered some cloth from the capital and it
arrived damp and had to be laid out to dry. This released the
plague carrying fleas and within days, Viccars fell ill and died.
Several of his neighbours also died and some families began to
panic and fled the area".

Note that in fact it was not Viccars who ordered the cloth but
Alexander Hadfield. That immediately makes the reliability of this
last account suspect. The author seems to not know the basic facts of
the situation and the story about the arrival of damp cloth may be no
more than an attempt to flesh out what is no more than a reasonable
hypothesis.

There are alternative ways by which fleas can introduce plague.
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/Pubs/insect/05600.html says of fleas in
Colorado.

"Plague can infect all rodents. Cats are also very susceptible. Dogs
can become infected. However dogs are more resistant to infection
than most mammals and seldom exhibit signs of illness.

Among rodents, where the disease is maintained, almost all spread
occurs via fleas. Not all fleas effectively transmit plague. Those
that do become infective days or weeks after ingesting blood from a
plague-infected rodent. In Colorado, the primary flea vector is the
rock squirrel flea and the primary hosts are rock squirrels,
prairie dogs, wood rats and other rodents that live in burrows or
elaborate stick nests. The human flea, most commonly encountered
in homes, is not involved in transmitting plague in Colorado.

Once the plague bacteria are ingested by the flea, it reproduces
within the gut and may form a plug of the flea’s digestive system.
Some time is required between when a flea is infected and when it
is capable of transmitting the organism; for the rock squirrel flea
this averages 53 days. Since the plague organism also is lethal to
the flea, due to the gut obstruction, fleas often die before they
can transmit the disease. However, an effect of the bacteria
blocking the gut is that the infected flea becomes starved and thus
more actively bites and seeks a host. Fleas capable of transmitting
the disease usually do so in the course of biting; less commonly,
the plague organisms are transmitted when scratching the flea feces
into bites or wounds".

I go along with the statement "There is no single, universally
accepted, account of the origins of the Eyam plague".



Eric Stevens
.

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