Black death conspiracy

Oh man, next time please read some literature on the subject so that you do not make a post with so many blatant giant errors.

Would this be the same Catholic Church that "embraced" the science of such notables as Galileo and da Vinci?

Yeah, the world is flat... By the way, we had the weekly world domination mass and we're going the biological warfare route.

Or so said the Cardinal to the Bishop...

Are you serious............

You have heard of alchemy.....
well it is the great and ancient study of chemicals (if you will)
And today our major and most influencial secret societies are ancestors of the alchemsitical organizations.
The balck death is not germs, but chemicals. The major symptoms were not black bulbs all over the body, which too would make me think chemicals, but respitory problems, like the couging up of blood.

Today we are kinder....but historica;ly we were playing with poisonous stuff, archic poisons, whose side effects were terrible...ie, black bulbus

what errors are you refering too.

oh mabey i can guess, oh ya it was a disease that spread across the country side of europe on a mass marching rat population...uh idont know if you hVE BEEN, BUT IS MASSIVE. FOR RATS TO HAVE MOVED AS FAST AS THEY DID TO have infected such a huge population...
i got it,
the rats and the pope were in it together

the rats wanted more land for creating big rat societies, and so did the church, and i think through the dark ages the pope had temporal power over massive rat populations, and the peasants lived in relitive peace

Why and how could something like this happen

no body else out their has any therories on the phenomana of the black death.

It comes at time right during the heretical inquistions, and made for an easier time just wiping out the entire population

Originally posted by epeorus
the rats wanted more land for creating big rat societies, and so did the church, and i think through the dark ages the pope had temporal power over massive rat populations, and the peasants lived in relitive peace

It totally makes sense... Cardinal Ratzinger becomes Pope Benedict XVI...

Wait...

Benedict...

Ben

You're on to something.

[edit on 7/2/2007 by Mirthful Me]

thats a really good point with the whole pope and ratz thing,

is it possible the pope and rat populations interbred in order to keep the powerful relationship solidified, and together behind the closed dorrs of the vatican, the clergy and the rats lived happily ever after

Oh, it's a troll post. Clever.

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[edit on 7-2-2007 by DontTreadOnMe]

Originally posted by WyrdeOne
A couple of points.

1.) The plague followed shipping routes, it didn't travel very quickly over land, but it was very rapid over water. It made it from Egypt to London in less than two years - no rat can run that fast. If you look at the spread of the black death, it followed the route taken by merchants, and struck first, and worst, in coastal cities.

2.) Some small number of individual rats in any given group are immune to plague.

3.) There are records of rats dying from plague in large numbers. The disease was first thought to be exclusive to rodents, because people witnessed them dying in large numbers in many different nations.

4.) All that said, there are alternative theories regarding the nature of the Black Death. Some folks think it was Anthrax, others think it was an Ebola-like virus. Some folks even think the rat/flea vector was superfluous, and that the disease was spread primarily by infected humans.

5.) Your theory seems predicated on the assumption that the black death benefited wealthy landowners and the church. In actuality, wages skyrocketed in the wake of the plague because so many laborers had died, the church lost a great deal of influence, and outbreaks of plague practically guaranteed peasant uprisings (ie: Ciompi Rebellion in Florence). Nevermind the fact that the plague brought upward mobility to Europe, and upward nobility is anathema to theories of conspiratorial elites. If they did mastermind it, they mucked it up something awful, because all of the results were diametrically opposed to their needs.

In any case, I think you need to do a lot more research, if you're serious about understanding the Black Death. Scholars are still beating each other senseless over it, and the damn thing happened almost seven hundred years ago.

I studied this period deeply in Uni a few years back and that's pretty much spot on - the reduction in population as a result of the Black Death broke the back of the feudal system and allowed people to press for decent wages for their labour and to move around more freely rather than being tied to an estate (which was pretty much like being owned by it).

IIRC, there are three forms of plague and I gather most scholars now think that the main culprit was most likely to have been Pneumonic plague, a variety of Yersinia pestis that attacks the lungs and can be passed person-to-person, killing within one to six days.

There are several forms of the disease caused by the Yersinia bacteria, but modern research on the patterns of spread of the medieval plague epidemic suggest that a virus with similar pathologic properties (attacks lymph glands, harbored by rats in a similar way, etc., as are the several Yersinia syndromes) was the actual disease agent. Yersinia disease certainly resembles the medieval syndrome very closely, but that doesn't mean that a virus couldn't have followed the same pathways in humans and rats as modern Yersinia disease follows. The virus theory better fits with the recent studies of the epidemiological pattern of the medieval plague than does the Yersinia theory.

Itstill does not make sense.

First, the particular cities it is first discovered, places like avingon, a relitive metropolis. According to the seriousness of the disease, the ships wouldnt have even made it across the mediterannian, without every one dying....i mean it was the black death. But NO it makes it s first apperances in the great cathar cities, the gnostics were being systimatically destroyed

I think WyrdOne put it pretty well. I'd just add one more thought.....

The humans of that time did not set a great store by bathing regularly......not even the weathy thought it was neccessary........that would have made most people more attractive to the fleas, even before the host rats cooled off enough to make the fleas move on. ( I've noticed my dog's fleas can't seem to tell he and I apart as well on Friday, as they can after my regular ' Sattady Nite '...lol)

Plus animals were a closer part of the regular folks lives, living in stables that adjoined the humans living quarters.......bringing fleas, mites, lice and such right in.....with no Raid or DDT handy, it would have been bug heaven!!

But it could be used as a chemical weapon. Just like any other disease can be used with the right circumstance.

I've read there are conflicting theories as to what the Black Death really was other than bubonic plague, but even if it is the plague you don't neccessarily need large rat populations for it's spread. The pnuemoniic form which attacked the respitory system was very virulent and far more lethal than the bubonic form, so an infected person could travel varying distances infecting all and sundry without the need for any rats.

I'd be interested to hear about any candidates for an alternative culprit for the disease, some researchers think it may have been an ebola like virus. Even if it was plague it seems that it was in a form that most of the populations of europe and asia had not encountered before due to the high mortality.

Originally posted by epeorus
so in conclusion

You seem to be mixed up, conclusions come after supporting obersvations and testing of theories, not before.

Originally posted by epeorus
the rats wanted more land for creating big rat societies, and so did the church, and i think through the dark ages the pope had temporal power over massive rat populations, and the peasants lived in relitive peace

You sir have missed your calling you are the greatest living comedian, that is a joke?

Eer...keep taking the tablets..

Originally posted by Mirthful Me

It totally makes sense... Cardinal Ratzinger becomes Pope Benedict XVI...

Wait...

Benedict...

Ben

You're on to something.

[edit on 7/2/2007 by Mirthful Me]

Ratzinger

Benedict Sweet film.

First, they didn't even know what germs were in those days. Second, they didn't believe in hygiene - they thought it was unhealthy to bathe more than 2 x a year or so. Third, they didn't dispose of their garbage, it was all out in the streets, a perfect breeding ground for rats. Next, they had no idea where it came from or how to treat it or how it spread. How the hell would they have known how to use it for germ warfare?

Another thing is that the Plague (same kind as this one) went through Rome around 100 A.D. IIRC. The Catholic church had barely gotten their act together - how and why would they have purposely spread that one throughout Rome?

Another major contributor was that they had killed all the dogs, believing they were witch's familiars. This greatly contributed to the rat population explosion. As for being on the ships, all ships have rats and diseases are easily spread from port to port that way. But the ships also always had alot of cats to keep the rat population down.

I see someone's been reading pages influenced by Gunnar Karlsson's writings. Karlsson has some interesting points, but missed key data in his studies. Skjalddis and WyrdeOne did point out some of the flaws.

In addition:
* rats are not the only rodents that carry fleas that host yersina pestis.
* in fact, MICE carry the same fleas and diseases.
* mice live in houses and fields. There was and is a good sized mouse population in Iceland (they came over with the humans.)
* there were indeed accounts of dead rodents... but nobody really went around and counted them. Dead people were a LOT more important.

The plagues (there wasn't just one... there were, in fact outbreaks every 20 years or so) are pretty well established as being caused by a bacteria called "yersina pestis." There are people who died during the plague that did NOT die of the bubonic plague (died of flu, pneumonia, exposure, and a thousand causes that we have overcome -- and yes some were even poisoned by the medicines of that day), so drawing conclusions from just a few samples is one mistake that was made in the "startling new theory."

Standing on the other side is a lot of material showing Yersina pestis (the bubonic plague bacteria) in bodies of plague victims.

Depending on which system Yersina pestis attacked, the disease showed up in 3 different ways:

Signs and symptoms
The three forms of plague brought an array of signs and symptoms to those infected. Bubonic plague refers to the painful lymph node swellings called buboes (mostly found around the base of the neck, armpits and groin). The septicaemic plague is a form of blood poisoning, and pneumonic plague is an airborne plague that attacks the lungs before the rest of the body. The classic sign of bubonic plague was the appearance of buboes in the groin, the neck and armpits, which ooze pus and blood. Victims underwent damage to the skin and underlying tissue until they were covered in dark blotches. This symptom is called acral necrosis. Most victims died within four to seven days after infection. When the plague reached Europe, it first struck port cities and then followed the trade routes, both by sea and land.
en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by WyrdeOne
4.) All that said, there are alternative theories regarding the nature of the Black Death. Some folks think it was Anthrax, others think it was an Ebola-like virus. Some folks even think the rat/flea vector was superfluous, and that the disease was spread primarily by infected humans.

The problem with the "alternative diseases" is that very little evidence has been found for them. The Ebola is extremely unlikely (it's a hemorrhagic fever, and as you see only a very small number match that kind of description) and there really hasn't been a lot of data showing that many people died of anthrax. Another strike against the anthrax theory is that it wouldn't come in waves, but would be a constant mortality factor in the population because everyone raised sheep and cattle. Anthrax is a disease that can be carried to cattle simply by walking through a farm with infected animals.

A second strike against anthrax is that burning cities and towns (which was usually done by accident) quelled the plague in the area. This wouldn't happen if the plague was caused by anthrax. Burning would kill rats and mice, but humans would be rushing to get sheep and cows away from the fire... and thus if it was anthrax, burning would be ineffective.

Chemicals are VERY unlikely. You would have to be importing TONS of something regularly (ships didn't have that capacity) every 20 years to match the plague scenario.