Transcript Lecture 19 - Historical Plague

Pests, Plagues & Politics
Lecture 19
The Black Death & Beyond
http://www.northernsun.com/Black-Death-T-Shirt-(1618).html
Key Points:
The Black Death & Beyond
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Political changes
Pandemic vs. epidemic
Campestral
Arbor disease
The Black Death
• Also known as Bubonic Plague
• Originated in northern China, ca. 3-4
thousand years ago.
– China: from 243 BC to 1911 AD, recorded
290 plague epidemics.
• Causal agent a bacterium
– Yersinia (Pasteurella) pestis
• 80% mortality rate is not unusual.
• “Hey, Doc, what’s a Bubo?”
That’s a BUBO!!
Without treatment kills two out of three
within 4 days.
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Swelling of lymph nodes in groin and armpits
Chills
General ill feeling (malaise)
High fever (102 degrees fahrenheit / 39 degrees celsius)
Muscle Cramps
Seizures
Pain may occur in the area before the swelling appears
For your interest
Without treatment kills two out of three
within 4 days.
•Heavy breathing, continuous blood vomiting, urination of
blood, aching limbs,
•Coughing (pneumonic plague) – highly contagious
•The pain is usually caused by the decaying or decomposing of
the skin
•Extreme fatigue, gastrointestinal problems, lenticulae (black
dots scattered throughout the body), delirium and coma.
For your interest
Brian Tierney and Sidney Painter state that, “It is not
surprising that some of the first reactions to the Black Death
were marked by a sort of pathological irrationality.”
http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/44/3.cover-expansion
For your interest
The Carrier by Nicolas Poussin [1630)
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/145683-New-Light-on-the-Black-Death-The-Cosmic-Connection
Burning of the Jews
http://aia-themiddleages.blogspot.com/
*Whenever you have a great shift like this,
there are political changes
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Higher labor costs
Revolt of workers
Textile industry boom in later years
Renewed interest in religion and death
http://www.squidoo.com/black-death-history
http://www.amazon.com/In-Wake-Plague-BlackDeath/dp/0060014342
Christianity & Plague
“Throughout the early Christian period, every
great calamity,
famine, earthquake, and plague, led to mass
conversions, Christianity owes a formidable debt to bubonic
plague and
to smallpox, no less than to earthquake and
volcanic
eruption.”
H. Zinsser, Rats, Lice & History
Plague Routes
http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/images/maps/decworld/plaguetraderoutes.jpg
Rattus rattus – the ship rat
The Great Plague Pandemics
• Justinian’s Plague
– 480 to 690 AD.
– Centered in modern day Turkey (& beyond)
– In Byzantium (later Constantinople, later Istanbul).
544 AD, a mortality of 5,000 per day.
– Suggested by Zinsser (a plague biographer) that
plague was the coup de grace for Rome in the
5th century.
For your interest
Second Great European Plague Cycle
• 1059 to mid-1300
• Originating in the Middle East and returned
to Europe with the Crusaders.
European mortality est. at 33%
– 1347 the population of Europe was 75 million
– 1352 the population of Europe was 50 million
– ergo, one in three died
For your interest
saypeople.com
Third European Plague Pandemic
• 16th & 17th centuries
• London 1666 - 70,000 dead out of 450,000
– 16% of the population.
• Finally died out ca. 1710.
For your interest
Plague Terminology
• *EPIDEMIC
– localized outbreak of a disease
• *PANDEMIC
– continental outbreak of a disease
• *Campestral/Sylvatic
– natural plague reservoirs (rodents) of field and
forest.
You would
be wise not
to pet me.
Cute, little
devil
California Ground Squirrel – Spermophilus beecheyi
More recent plague geography
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/plague/who_cc/index.htm
For your interest
Plague in the U.S.
1970 through 1981
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New Mexico
Arizona
California
Colorado
77
21
16
9
• Oregon
7
• Others
6
For your interest
Is Bubonic Plague a major threat today??
• No & here’s why:
– Sanitation
– Effective rodent control
– vaccines
• Yes
– in the underdeveloped & “unsanitized” regions
of the world, with overcrowding, poverty, &
rats!!
For your interest
Plague today
Rare Case Of Bubonic Plague Shows Up In Lake County
David Nogueras | October 1, 2010 | Bend, OR
State health officials say a woman in Lake County has been diagnosed with
bubonic plague.
It’s the first diagnosis in Oregon in 15 years. The disease terrorized
Europe’s population more than 600 years ago, but the plague is treatable
when caught early.
For your interest
*Arbor Disease
• Insects as VECTORS of disease
– To “vector” is to carry
• Insects can also serve as intermediate
hosts of disease organisms
Bubonic Plague
• An ARBOR disease
– vector: Fleas
– Order Siphonaptera (“wingless tube”)
• 17 families with ca. 2,000 species worldwide having
been around more than 100 million years.
• 9 N. Amer. Families with ca. 150 species
– Ectoparasites of endotherms (mammals & birds)
• bilaterally compressed body - secondarily apterous
• ca. 20 species of flea are able to utilize humans as
hosts
– Female flea requires a blood meal prior to
ovogenesis (laying eggs)
For your interest
Plague “Types”
• Bubonic - flea bite required
• Pneumonic - direct human to human
transmission; no fleas required
• Septicemic - direct infection of the blood
stream; works very quickly.
Note: the flea also dies of this disease
The oriental rat flea under
better light.
Xenopsylla cheopis,
“Dear God, what wonders
there are in so small
a creature.”
Antonie van Leewenhoek
For your interest
Life History of Plague
• Primarily a disease of rodents
– Sylvatic (Campestral) Plague
– 220 species of rodents shown to be capable of
harboring the various species of fleas that can vector Y.
pestis.
• Rats - not native to Europe (neither were mice).
• Plague is maintained by individual rodents who
are partially to fully immune to Y. pestis.
For your interest
“Quarantine”
• Rat
– Native to Asia
• Medieval trade brought the rat to Europe via
ships
– Along with the rat came the flea & the
plague bacillus.
• Ships were required to sit at anchor for 40 days
before off-loading cargo
• Italian word “quaranta” = 40
• From which the English word “quarantine”
is derived.
For your interest
How to contract Bubonic Plague
• Normal flea transmission via an infected
flea
• By scratching infected flea feces into your
skin
• By swallowing an infected flea
– ergo, please do not pick fleas off animals to eat!
• sounds odd, but it happens!!!
For your interest
The Deadly Triangle
Y. pestis
Mammal Host
Flea
The flea vector will accept many hosts, rodents normally, but
humans are acceptable, and Y. pestis is also pathogenic with
H.s.sapiens.
For your interest
Flea Control
• Keep your home flea free
clean often (the great
Hoover)
which includes the bedding of
your pets
• Chemicals
– Many options
– tidbit: flea collar an OSU
invention
Can you name the other OSU biggies??
Thanks to OSU
Research
Key Points:
The Black Death & Beyond
•
•
•
•
Political changes
Pandemic vs. epidemic
Campestral
Arbor disease