Plague.

There's been lots of speculation as to why plague, endemic in many areas and genetically the same strain as earlier strains had the ability to erupt into such widespread and devastating pandemics there are competing theories as to what factors played into this from human fleas being able to transmit the disease to questioning if it was even the plague as the characteristic s and virulence were so different. My preffered theory was that the pnuemonic form was the main player in its spread and deadliness. I'm interested in any other lines of enquiry and theories people have. It is also pertinent that if a bubonic or pnuemonic form developed antibioticc resistance would modern society be vulnerable to more devastating pandemics.

a reply to: fastzombie

S&F - Love some good plague doom porn! Do you have any links, pics or anything to back this up?

a reply to: fastzombie

Part of the speculation on why the Black Death was so devastating around Europe centers on the end of the Medieval Warm Period and the start of the Little Ice Age.

There was widespread crop failures as a result of the changing weather patterns over Europe and the populace was hungry and weakened by malnutrition. Rats were moved in closer to the people who were packed in together in the colder, wetter weather.

It was a situation ripe for a disease to exploit.

Concentrated Rose-Hip water with an added liposomal carrier and no more viral diseases....you super saturate your bloodstream with vitamin c that breaks down into O2 or oxygen....oxygen flooding your bloodstream kills all pathogens.

I still think it’s mainly flea born .

If so with the pesticides, living conditions and insect repellent we have now .

A antibiotic resistant plague wouldn’t be anywhere near as devastating as the middle ages.

If it ever happens invest in Dow Chemical or Bayer .




Never let a good opportunity go to waste .

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: fastzombie

Part of the speculation on why the Black Death was so devastating around Europe centers on the end of the Medieval Warm Period and the start of the Little Ice Age.

There was widespread crop failures as a result of the changing weather patterns over Europe and the populace was hungry and weakened by malnutrition. Rats were moved in closer to the people who were packed in together in the colder, wetter weather.

It was a situation ripe for a disease to exploit.

...additionally, during that same time period, cats were associated with witchcraft. Cats were killed en masse...

Without predatory cats, rat populations exploded.

EDIT TO ADD: I am not a cat person. I have one, but it wasn't my decision... it was his.

They seem to be allowing food chemicals that actually stop our body from making antigen immunity or can block our immune system from working properly. What Federal orginization is supposed to be investigating these chemistries and why aren't they taking action?

a reply to: LookingAtMars

here's a few looking at both pneumonic and human parasite, not rat fleas being responsible.

www.quantamagazine.org...

gizmodo.com...

a reply to: madmac5150

I think it was more to do with a prevailing idea that dogs and cats spread the plague. There were mass dog and cat culls in the initial stages of the great plague of London I believe. Ironically this meant the rat population became more larger, helping to spread it more.

This is interesting because people obviously made some kind of link about the zoonotic aspect of the disease but failed to apply it to rats.

a reply to: ketsuko

I've heard this. I think all sorts of aspects were at play to bring about the 'perfect storm' conditions for the plague to flourish, general poor health and unsanitary conditions but I still find it hard to believe that fleas were the main engine driving the epidemic. Healthy 21C people will die of plague if not treated quickly, especially in the case of pneumonic plague, it really is a lethal form of the disease, 60% death rate for bubonic, almost 100% for pneumonic.

My own theory is that the unsanitary conditions of the medieval world facilitated the primary cause of the outbreaks, rat flea bites but once the disease got established it became largely spread by the pneumonic form.

a reply to: Fallingdown

I think we understand enough about it now that steps can be taken to minimise even anti biotic resistant plague from becoming pandemic.

I hope anyway.

I've always had this weird phobia/fascination with the idea that it will one day spring back into life and catch us all by surprise.

There were numerous factors in historical plague outbreaks that we, of the modern world, simply wouldn't intuit or relate to sympathetically.

Modern plumbing is an example. It's difficult for us to understand that up until a century or two ago the norm was to utilize a bucket for human waste - and then to empty that bucket outside. In urban environments this literally meant into the street. Gutters running thick with the waste of thousands along with the waste of horses.

A serious vector for contagions.

Dwellings tended to be small and thickly populated - multi-generational family units living in one or two room flats or hovels that likely were about the size of a modern living room or even single bedroom.

This proximity and crowding, another serious vector for contagions.

Medicine existed in a form where the "cure" would potentially be more dangerous than the ailment. While there are plenty of tales today about historical healers who possessed some uncanny insights into plants, herbs and their effects - it would have been far more common to encounter a "healer" who would defer to any number of "treatments" that might include heavy blood letting, drinking urine, eating specific organs from animals - often raw, writing special symbols onto paper and then burning the paper or keeping it on the patient or even just giving the patient a particular pebble from a river in the belief ( or suggestion ) that the rock possessed supernatural powers.

All this without understanding hygiene... So good healer or not they were still going door to door and interacting with the infected without any sanitary protections.

Bad ideas that could, in some cases, kill a healthy patient - administered in a way that provided a serious vector for contagions.

And yes, domesticated and farm animals also carried fleas - as did rats - as did the vast majority of people.

Parasites, including fleas and lice were a serious vector for... Well you know.

a reply to: fastzombie

All three kinds of the plague were at work I think. Pneumonic plague killed too quickly to make it effective to spread the plague as widely as the Black Death was able to spread. Pneumonic can drop someone within days to hours. So you needed all three types to keep the Black Death rolling, including the type spread through flea bites.

From what I've read, I'm guessing the infectious fleas spread it from place to place via trade routes, and then all three types would crop up from there: bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic.

www.who.int...

It's still around and interestingly the only country showing a steady increase in last set of figures was the USA.

Now if I was MSM i'd be shouting about an 800% increase 2010-2015 which would be factually correct as going from 2 cases to 16 doesn't sound so scary and wouldn't sell so well

It'a all in how the facts are presented.

a reply to: fastzombie

My understanding is without the Plague, we would not have had the renaissance period, hence no industrial revolution, scientific progress, or information age in the manner and pace that we now currently experience.

My understanding is that is spread from the mites on rodents, to Humans and then coughing spread an airborne version of the disease.

Nature has a tendency to separate the wheat from the chaff from time to time.

a reply to: fastzombie

Most important.... all of us are the decedents of the survivors.

a reply to: Sillyolme

Yes and no. The Black Death was primarily a European phenomena. Not all of us are European, and not all of us are pure European. The Black Death never got to the Americas for example, so those of us with Native American blood in any measure may not carry genes from that time, and not everyone who survived was immune. Many just got lucky and never got ill. And over time, those genes will have been diluted back into the population.

originally posted by: Hefficide





And yes, domesticated and farm animals also carried fleas - as did rats - as did the vast majority of people.

Parasites, including fleas and lice were a serious vector for... Well you know.

As far as I'm aware the idea that it could be transmitted effectively by other types of flea and lice hasn't been evidenced sufficiently to say they played a part. I think the parasite vector played a part in establishing an outbreak in a community and enabling it to travel from place to place.

a reply to: ketsuko

No, but we did bring with us smallpox, measles, and the like which we gave to the indigenous populace as a kind of medieval bioweapon, knowingly after a while.

50 million plus people with little to no immune system to fight off the infection.

a reply to: ketsuko

I thought it was endemic in some parts of the US