[forkinsocket]

.

[Lijahsbubbe]

[wideminded]

Their findings, published on Monday in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that the plague selectively took the already ill,

I recall reading in school that this plague killed half the people in England, so it seems unlikely that all of these people (IIRC 4 million of them) were already ill.

[Centurion2000]

Note to self: Get buried in a nice secret location with a lot of rickey terrain so I’m not dug up 600+ years later.

[Billthedrill]

Well, the grand conclusion was that the Plague killed off unhealthy people more than healthy ones. That isn't exactly controversial. The interesting thing about Yersinia pestis is that it multiplies with fantastic rapidity in the body and simply overwhelms the immune system. It does that in fleas as well - the reason they bite humans is that the organism multiplies so rapidly it physically blocks their proboscises. The little buggers bite humans where they wouldn't normally because they're starving to death. Incredible.

[JennysCool]

Ping!

[Peacekeeper357]

Just prior to this,early 1300’s, England was having a big problem with stray cats, so it got all the people to kill the cats. No more cats. The rats then became the problem and with them the flees. Also the old nursery song “Ring around the rosie” came from the black death.

[gusopol3]

Sexually transmitted infections like H.I.V. disproportionately affect the strongest and healthiest, for the obvious reason that they are the most sexually active.

oh, that's the at-risk group.

[neverdem]

thanks, bfl

[kalee]

ping

[wafflehouse]

This is a very interesting book..

A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe

[mtbopfuyn]

a pattern of excess mortality was associated with different kinds of lesions suggests that the plague more often killed the weak than the strong

Like, duh. Did they consider the population of neighborhood could have been made up of poor elderly people living in close proximity to each other? As for their take on AIDS, it's not that the more healthy are being infected but the lack of morals.

[RightWhale]

The Black Plague originated in Central America and was brought to Europe by early traders. Pre-Columbian for sure and thus deniable.

[Palladin]

What a morbid hobby.

[SunkenCiv]

The Spanish flu of 1918 killed thousands of healthy people in their prime while sparing many children and the elderly, whose weaker immune systems did not overreact to the infection. Sexually transmitted infections like H.I.V. disproportionately affect the strongest and healthiest, for the obvious reason that they are the most sexually active.

It's also been suggested that an earlier deadly flu outbreak late in the 19th century wound up, in effect, vaccinating those around at the time who'd contracted it, such that their immune systems laughed off the Spanish Lady. Thanks forkinsocket.

[martin_fierro]

29 + posts, and not one "BRING OUT YOUR DEAD" graphic??

People. You're slipping.