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Archiver > ALT-GENEALOGY > 2005-11 > 1130954918


From: "James A. Doemer" <>
Subject: Re: Genealogy and the Plague
Date: Wed, 02 Nov 2005 18:08:38 GMT
References: <HPn9f.2499$2y.1662@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net> <dOO9f.36772$f%3.1743901@phobos.telenet-ops.be> <3648b$4368b904$82a1f636$22447@news1.tudelft.nl>


In News 3648b$4368b904$82a1f636$,, Lesley Robertson at
, typed this:

> "CWatters" <> wrote in message
> news:dOO9f.36772$f%...
>>
>> "James A. Doemer" <> wrote in message
>> news:HPn9f.2499$...
>>
>>> somewhere just under 50% of the known world perished because of
>>> the disease. I had always heard numbers in the 25% range until now.
>>> It seems amazing to imagine looking around and thinking about half
>>> my friends, family, and aquaintences being killed.
>>
>> The current human death rate for bird flu is around 50% I believe.
>> Who knows
>> if it will be that bad once it mutates.
>>
> In % terms that looks pretty alarming, but the numbers are something
> like 68 deaths over 3 years - all people who handled live birds, and
> mostly people without modern medical facilities. To get the mutation
> they're so afraid of, a person would have to be infected with both
> human and bird flu viruses at the same, and the 2 viruses would have
> to be compatible, and come up with a combination that allows person
> to person infection.
> The problem with the historic plagues was that nobody knew they were
> caused by bacteria in bad food, bad water and bad general hygiene.

I read someplace that during the plague someone in London thought that the
increased rat population was causing the disease, so they had a massive rat
killing and burned the carcasses. Unfortunately, the fleas and ticks that
were actually carrying the disease had no place else to go but to human
hosts, which further spread the disease in England.


> They through the thing to do was keep the night air out, and avoid
> bad smells - had they done something about the sewage streaming down
> the streets, for example, or medics had washed their hands between
> patients, they would have saved a LOT of lives, but they didn't know
> such things were necessary. Although van Leeuwenhoek discovered
> microorganisms in the 17th century, it wasn't until the mid to late
> 19th censuty that Pasteur, Koch and others made the connection
> between the "little animals" of van Leeuwenhoek and infections good
> and bad. Lesley Robertson


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