Posted on 03/29/2008 4:52:00 PM PDT by blam
The chances of surviving the Black Death
Why did some people survive the Black Death, and others succumb? At the time of the plague – which ravaged Europe from 1347 to 1351, carrying off 50 million people, perhaps half the population – various prophylactics were tried, from the killing of birds, cats and rats to the wearing of leather breeches (protecting the legs from flea bites) and the burning of aromatic spices and herbs.
Now it seems that the best way of avoiding death from the disease was to be fit and healthy. Sharon DeWitte and James Wood of the University of Albany, New York, have examined 490 skeletons from the East Smithfield plague pit in London and found that the Black Death was selective in picking off the already frail. Lesions (damaged bone) associated with earlier episodes of infection, under-nutrition or other forms of physiological stress were present in most of those buried at East Smithfield, where the dead were stacked five deep in the mass graves on a site hurriedly opened on land donated by the Bishop of London.
‘This actually contradicts what many have assumed about the epidemic, says Dr DeWitte. ‘The pattern we observed is of the Black Death targeting the weak, though it did also kill some people who were otherwise healthy. This is consistent with an emerging disease striking a population with no immunity’.
During the plague, physicians wore a beaklike mask which was filled with strongly aromatic herbs and spices to overpower the miasmas or bad air thought to carry the plague. The hat and the long, black overcoat was designed to minimise skin exposure. Exposed skin was also coated in wax or suet to protect against droplet contamination (see illustration).
Our ancestors who survived bequeathed us stronger, healthier genes.
(repost from a previous FR thread on The Black Death/Plague)
Link to the site for the Black Death episode on PBS’s “Secrets
of the Dead” series.
A good show about who lived, who died and maybe why.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_plague/
HillaryCare. That is the ONLY answer. Our ONLY hope.
I thought this was going to be a thread about Obama.
Ah yes. Even the children remember.
Ring around the rosey
(the buboe or symtom of the plague)
A pocket full of poseys
( a nosegay of flowers to cover the smell of death)
Ashes, ashes, we ALL fall down.
(everyone dies)
LOL!
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Thanks Blam. |
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The very best way was to have two parents that both had the Delta-32 mutation.
I followed the link, to a couple of others. Absolutely mind-boggling.
And it still does. Ground squirrels, prairie dogs, and the enviro-weenies' favorite - the black footed ferret - all are flea bags. A veritable plague incubator, long recognized and consequently nearly eradicated. Also one of the reasons you don't hunt rabbits until after a good hard frost. Every few years a case of plague shows up NW Colorado; fortunately some old sawbones recognizes the symptoms in time.
Now there’s something you don’t run across every day ;-) Glad the treatment worked!
Pretty bad.
I had to insist on one set of innoculations. Otherwise the medical powers that be would have failed me...as they did your friend.
Horrifying how all of the old scourges are returning! And that in no small part due to the environazis!!
Bump
It was noted that the rich who drank out of and ate off from silver came down with the plague less often. Silver is a known germ killer.
Right. China is killing off their cats, which were many, to prepare for the Olympics. They better watch out for a plague. They are killing the cats horribly.
Check out "28 Days" and "28 Weeks Later". I think they were both superior movies to Will's Smith's work.
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