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There's a program on the History Channel right now on the Black Death in Europe. It focuses on the historical consequences of millions of people dying, the institutions that were affected, etc.More interestingly, last week I saw another program on the Black Death that dealt with the scientific aspect of it: what WAS the Black Death? It's commonly accepted that it was the bubonic plague, but a lot of scholars dispute that theory. They contend the bubonic plague dynamics don't fit with the hitorical record. Some even think that something like Ebola might have been responsible for the Black Death. Very interesting.
It's too bad that it's showing this week, when I don't think I can watch it. It's one of the aspects of the Middle Ages that I'm most curious about. I had a friend who got his Masters in history, and he told me about a class he had taken that was only on the Black Death. Aside from the immediate deaths it caused (around 25 million, I believe), it must have caused staggering changed across all areas of life that changed the course of history. I wonder if there are some good books on this topic.
It's too bad that it's showing this week, when I don't think I can watch it. It's one of the aspects of the Middle Ages that I'm most curious about. I had a friend who got his Masters in history, and he told me about a class he had taken that was only on the Black Death. Aside from the immediate deaths it caused (around 25 million, I believe), it must have caused staggering changed across all areas of life that changed the course of history. I wonder if there are some good books on this topic.
If you find a good one volume treatment of it, let me know. I'd be interested as well.
I had a pharmacology professor many years ago who speculated that the Black Death could have been Ergot poisoning from the mold on wheat. Ebola or Bubonic Plague seems more likely though.
I cannot remember the book,but I did read that most of the symptoms and morbidity rates and times fit anthrax. Wish I could remeber more.
I had a pharmacology professor many years ago who speculated that the Black Death could have been Ergot poisoning from the mold on wheat. Ebola or Bubonic Plague seems more likely though.
I had always heard it was bubonic, but I havent read much about the subject either.
I didnt know that there was a debate on what it actually was. Bacillus yersinia pestis was my understanding of it.
Its interesting to note (after further reading) that there was asian outbreak as well as middle eastern. And yes I still beleive it was bubonic.
Is this far fetched? A meteor hit somewhere in Asia and it carried extraterrestrial microbes which caused the Black Plague.
Were you watching that show on the History Channel about aliens shaping human history? No, I don't think we need to explain the Black Death by microbes from a meteorite. Seeing how there were many subsequent epidemics of Bubonic plague after the 1348 pandemic, it seems that they would have originated from something terrestrial.
Yes I did watch that. 😀 Most of it was funny, but there was an episode or segment talking about actual proven microbes from space.
I didn't know that there was any scientific proof of any living thing originating off our earth, including microbes. Notice how the people they interview for that show always seem to make the wildest statements – including that well-dressed guy with the crazy hair. I have thought about this, and it's like – really? Has the History Channel gone this far south? Granted, I do generally like alien shows on TV, and this does deal to some degree with history, but I would prefer more “straight” history shows. They seem to be an endangered species nowadays on the channel, and we're lucky to get a show on the Third Reich or the Knights Templar squeezed in between “Ice Road Truckers” and “Pawn Stars”. 🙁
I was thinking the same last weekend when I was watching this alien crap in the History channel and kept thinking of HOW MUCH history there is to have shows about and they resort to this. History International is better, but they keep repeating the same shows over and over.Actually the alien microbe thing wasn't that far-fetched (as far as I could tell). It wasn't the Von Daniken and other LSD whacko types who claim the pyramids were built by martians. The were talking about the bacteria/microbes in that comet tail as well as some other stuff they hypothesize about meteors.
