RE Write History..!Black Death blamed on GIANT GERBILS from Asia....

www.cbc.ca...

400 Years ago many millions of people died from a horrible plague....They called it the Black Death....
Up to this point, it was always assumed that RATS caused this plague with their plague infected fleas....
Mc Master University has traced the disease to another species which caused its spread.....GIANT ASIAN GERBILS...........
Check the link for the interesting details......
This just goes to show....Science CAN be Wrong.....400 years of ignorance...now denied....

I heard this on the radio this morning and people were e-mailing in, bemoaning the fact that the historians got it so wrong.

Somebody from Weymouth e-mailed in stating that the Black Plague started there when the rats ran off the ship and headed directly to a grain barn. I guess the contents in the grain barn was transported all over the country and it spread from there.

It now appears that claim can no longer be applied. Which makes one wonder what else have the historians got wrong?

originally posted by: stirling
www.cbc.ca...

400 Years ago many millions of people died from a horrible plague....They called it the Black Death....
Up to this point, it was always assumed that RATS caused this plague with their plague infected fleas....
Mc Master University has traced the disease to another species which caused its spread.....GIANT ASIAN GERBILS...........
Check the link for the interesting details......
This just goes to show....Science CAN be Wrong.....400 years of ignorance...now denied....

How convenient LOL. Anthropogenic climate change driven death from Asia, it has kind of a nice ring to it for the production of a new meme ;-) Rats are good (vindicated), ASIAN gerbils (products imported) are bad. Now, I would agree that a lot of stuff that comes out of Asia is pretty cheezy and crappy, in some cases probably (more than likely) toxic, but seriously, ASIAN gerbils? What will they dream up next LOL? More ***new*** (cough cough) "information" to support the AGC crowd? Only in Canada you say, pity (to quote a Red Rose tea commercial from the 60's and 70's).

ETA, BTW, who says this "new" information is correct other than a bunch of alleged scientists on the government payroll? A government so ef'ed up it is gaging scientists that don't spout in line with the political agenda, that's who. Harpernista and crew, like the garbage before them are bloody shills. You can take this right back to Trudeau (probably earlier) who gave the Bank of Canada to the IMF in 1975, you know, back when the deficit was 16 billion, not todays 650 billion, through IMF owed interest accumulation.

Nuther ETA, Look at who is promoting this "new" alleged science, the CBC, the government of Canadakastans very own propaganda tool. These wankers wouldn't be allowed to publish or show the truth if it bit them on their collective asses while the cameras were running.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: stirling
So the fleas were still the main vector by the looks of it.
I never blamed the Rats myself,and I don't blame these Gerbils either.

They were the carriers,but it was not intentional.

Diseases and Viruses are clever bastards,they hitch a ride on all manner of life-and it gets blamed on gerbils or rats!!

Really Bob?
You don't approve of the machinations of Canadas el Suprimo?
Be that as it may....let me say....I merely report the interesting news for your consideration....Now that you have considered it and rejected it,......I have to say you may well be right on the money.....
I don't believe we have been given much truth over the centuries by those who would rule us......
Information is always suspect......
But this is a conspiracy site...and you get the prixe for in depth bitching....I respect that.....
May I call you a friend?
Ops too late yer on my list....

This is so not news.

The giant gerbils had skins that traveled along the silk roads as a trade item. The fleas were on the skins. When the fleas got hungry, they hopped off onto what they could eat - people and rats. Thus, the plague that was resident in the gerbils spread from the gerbils to the rats and people.

I learned this researching the Black Death for a term paper in high school. What is these reaserchers' excuse? And which government paid for this when clearly this was an item in research over decade ago?

News to some but not to you Ket......you get the prixe for pre knowing this BS.....
See my above....

a reply to: stirling

It was no knock on what you posted. I was just surprised that this wasn't known. If I could uncover it as a high school junior doing research in a small town library (you know Dark Ages pre-Internet), I would have thought it would be common knowledge.

Sometimes, stuff like this pops up and I have to wonder why it feels like society seems to be constantly relearning things.

originally posted by: stirling
Really Bob?
You don't approve of the machinations of Canadas el Suprimo?
Be that as it may....let me say....I merely report the interesting news for your consideration....Now that you have considered it and rejected it,......I have to say you may well be right on the money.....
I don't believe we have been given much truth over the centuries by those who would rule us......
Information is always suspect......
But this is a conspiracy site...and you get the prixe for in depth bitching....I respect that.....

May I call you a friend?
Ops too late yer on my list....

LOL Sterling, one sceptic to another, good show my friend ;-) On the rest, I've dealt with universities and their tenured professors. You might as well stick a piece of paper with government lines (or lies) in their mouths and just have them spit it back out again on camera/mic/paper. Their ability to convincingly lie for the government controls their grants/income/revenue stream, it's a kind of subtle extortion. Well not always, I've heard do it or else before as well. What is really funny, when you question their ethics (in my case concerning breach of agreements, communications fraud, IP theft, tax and public funds frauds, conspiracy to commit fraud with government ministers, stock manipulation, etc.) what they do is investigate themselves and NOT call it a conflict of interest, because they're special (ef'ing short bus special). Yeah, I've had my time with the wankers, you can't trust any of these turds.

ETA: On harpernista, an anagram for Stephen Harper = The Err Happens.

Cheers - Dave

Ah Bob...We agree to agree.....


NO fence intended Ket...just a little light headed today....
Im glueing up a model ship to install a putt putt motor (twin motors actually....)
I meant no disrespect, and took your post to mean exactly what you inferred.....
It is strange it took Mc Master UNI to suck up a bunch of cash rediscovering what a high school kid could find on an internet search for a term paper.....well...maybe not that strange.....

The extent of the BP was due as much to ignorance as anything else. They blamed cats and tried to destroy them. Bad call as they are natural enemies of the rodents that carried this disease.

a reply to: intrepid

Oh yeah, cat persecution, lack of hygiene, the onset of the Little Ice Age which caused several years of bad harvests causing famines and a weakened population ... They were ripe for a plague.

a reply to: stirling

Well actually history and science wise there are still alot of queations on the black death.

There are a number of discrepancys,

originally posted by: stirling
www.cbc.ca...

400 Years ago many millions of people died from a horrible plague....They called it the Black Death....
Up to this point, it was always assumed that RATS caused this plague with their plague infected fleas....
Mc Master University has traced the disease to another species which caused its spread.....GIANT ASIAN GERBILS...........
Check the link for the interesting details......
This just goes to show....Science CAN be Wrong.....400 years of ignorance...now denied....

Sure if you call what the church ran government of plague days as science.vthey are definatly a better representative of science then the guy who figured out it was really gerbils.... Lol

originally posted by: stirling
Ah Bob...We agree to agree.....

NO fence intended Ket...just a little light headed today....
Im glueing up a model ship to install a putt putt motor (twin motors actually....)
I meant no disrespect, and took your post to mean exactly what you inferred.....
It is strange it took Mc Master UNI to suck up a bunch of cash rediscovering what a high school kid could find on an internet search for a term paper.....well...maybe not that strange.....

No fence taken LOL.

I already have one, the 4000v/2000 joule system for "guests" along with the sign that says,

"No Trespassing
Violators will be crispy
Please bring own bread crumbs, eggs and milk"

I think I need to make an underground bunker and call Mike Myers ;-) I want sharks with friggin' lasers!

I remember making model airplanes, RC's and line control with .29's on them, but that was like close to 50 years ago. But, I still remember the glue and model airplane dope, quite a buzz. Now where did I leave those extra brain cells? And you're right, almost anything to support any premise can be found on the internet. It's just a question of doing your own research and separating the fly feces from the pepper. I expect someone at MadMac has a benefactor in government (don't they all) LOL.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: crazyewok

I agree that there are still a number of things they don't know. One of them, if I remember right is just exactly why the Plague got so virulent. It seems to be a disease that suddenly breaks out of its cage and runs rampant, and as far as I've been able to determine, no one really knows why.

All the mechanisms are in place for it to spread like it did, but it more or less stays confined to the regions and species where it's endemic. However, every so often in history ... BOOM! And they don't understand precisely why it gets set off, whether it's because it mutates and gets slightly more virulent or whether other environmental factors have to come into play or some combination of the two.

And that's one puzzle.

But I really do remember reading about the gerbil link.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: crazyewok

I agree that there are still a number of things they don't know. One of them, if I remember right is just exactly why the Plague got so virulent. It seems to be a disease that suddenly breaks out of its cage and runs rampant, and as far as I've been able to determine, no one really knows why.

All the mechanisms are in place for it to spread like it did, but it more or less stays confined to the regions and species where it's endemic. However, every so often in history ... BOOM! And they don't understand precisely why it gets set off, whether it's because it mutates and gets slightly more virulent or whether other environmental factors have to come into play or some combination of the two.

And that's one puzzle.

But I really do remember reading about the gerbil link.

The other was the huge variations in mortality rate between towns, some of which could be next to each other.
And the variations in symptoms.

In some places you got the normaly ratio of septic/pnemonic plague and in other places it was way off.

Im with the opinion another pathogen may have mades its rounds at the same time but was just not noticed as back then there was no way to tell the diffrence.

As others have mentioned, this was during the Little Ice Age when crop failures had created a shortage of food in many areas. Bad nutrition, eating spoiled food and superstitious belief systems teamed up for a real big event. It's been a long time since I looked into this but I do remember reading a paper that postulated that the lack of nutritious food was a major factor in the high death rates in some villages. I'll have to see if I can find that paper and also the Masters' thesis that a former student did for a double Masters' in Nursing and English. She looked at medical side of things and the part the Plague played in literature of the day.
While it is entirely possible that the gerbils were the source of the disease, it is also proven that the rats were a reservoir for the pathogens. I'm betting there were more rats than gerbils around in those days.

Ketsuko says they traded the Girbil skins to Europe and along the way fleas fell out...hungry little buggers with plague in their teeths.....
As good a reason to brush after every meal as any......

a reply to: Cobaltic1978

lol you kidding me what else have they got wrong try everything lol .................
I live in ohio and they are starting to find what they think may be the most ancient structurs on the planet in adams county.
Its coming out the smythsonain museum is tryin to keep lid on it has been scince the 30s.

But guess what every body there are pyramids in ohio lol .

Oh yeah i know i spelled smythsonain wrong........i dont care lol.