  The
case of the biggest medical story of the last millennium
just got reopened. Professor Christopher Duncan and Dr
Sue Scott, of the University of Liverpool, have dropped
an epidemiological bombshell with their upcoming book
Return of the Black Death: The World's Greatest
Serial Killer. Using detailed analysis of the microbial
and historical evidence they argue that, contrary to established
theory, the historic scourge known as the Black Death
wasn't caused by bubonic plague, but a yet-to-be-identified
virus.
The authors -- Professor Duncan is a zoologist, Dr Scott
a social historian -- also manage to exonerate the Oriental
rat and its much-maligned travelling companion, the Xenopsylla
cheopis flea, by arguing it was actually travelling
humans who spread the Plague. The scope and swiftness
of the Black Death was possible in 14th century Europe,
they say, thanks to the virus' extraordinarily long incubation
period. What's more, the authors feel it's entirely plausible
that this Black Death could make a comeback.
GOD'S
LITTLE TOKEN
Bubonic plague, a disease caused by the Yersinia
bacteria, has long been widely accepted as the cause
of the Black Death. But for some scientists, it never
quite fit the many detailed primary accounts of the
Black Death.
"It was instantly recognized at the time of the
Black Death in 1347 that the disease was directly infectious
person to person," says Dr Scott, "and this
view persisted until the end of the 19th century when
bubonic plague was discovered and the story of rats
and fleas being responsible for the Black Death was
invented."
The authors examined countless chronicles and medical
reports from the Plague period and noticed something.
"The detailed clinical descriptions of hemorrhagic
plague in no way fit with those of bubonic plague,"
says Professor Duncan. "The characteristic symptoms
of hemorrhagic plague were 'God's tokens,' spots on
the chest resulting from hemorrhaging beneath the skin.
These aren't found in bubonic plague victims."
"Our work with the English parish registers that
were maintained during a plague epidemic revealed to
us that the disease had the following characteristics:
a latent period of 12 days; a 20-day infectious period
before appearance of symptoms and a five-day period
of symptoms before death," Professor Duncan continues.
"This long incubation period shows how the diseasecould
spread over hundreds of miles even in the days of limited
transport. It also corresponds exactly with the quarantine
period that the Italian health authorities worked out
by trial and error 600 years ago." It goes without
saying that rats and fleas seldom pay heed to quarantine
orders. Their conclusion? "Bubonic plague was never
established in Europe."
RAISED
HACKLES
The ink barely had time to dry before Return of the
Black Death was publicly dismissed by Plague expert
Dr Michael Smith of the London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine. He publicly stated, "the body
of evidence suggests that it was bubonic plague"
and pointed to recent French research that looked at
the DNA of exhumed Black Death victims and found evidence
of bubonic plague.
Professor Duncan and Dr Scott are unmoved by Dr Smith's
criticism: "Michael Smith has given the typical
knee-jerk response of someone who has not read any of
our work," they retort. They feel the French research
was "completely discredited" by the article
"Absence of Yersinia pestis-specific DNA
in human teeth from five European excavations of putative
plague victims," published in the February issue
of Microbiology.
WHAT TO BELIEVE?
For people left scratching their heads and wondering
who to believe, there are always the primary accounts
to fall back on. For example, Marchione di Coppo Stefani's
Florentine Chronicle, written in the late 1370s,
observes the medical response to the Black Death: "Physicians
could not be found because they had died like the others.
And those who could be found wanted vast sums in hand
before they entered the house. And when they did enter,
they checked the pulse with face turned away. They inspected
urine from a distance with something odoriferous under
their nose."
Samuel Pepys was the great chronicler of the miseries
of the 17th century Plague of London, one of the last
outbreaks. On August 31, 1665 he offers this grim report
in his diary: "In the City died this week 7,496,
and of them 6,102 of the plague. But it is feared that
the true number of the dead this week is near 10,000;
partly from the poor that cannot be taken notice of."
Professor Duncan and Dr Scott feel there's strong evidence
for five outbreaks of a Black Death-type virus in recorded
history. The first occurred in Mesopotamia from 700
to 400 BC; then during the Plague of Athens of 430 BC;
next the Plague of Justinian from AD 541 to AD 700;
then the plagues of Islam in AD 627 to AD; and finally
the 14th- to 17th-century Black Death. "If the
virus is still lying dormant in its animal host in Africa,
it could, potentially, reappear at any time," says
Dr Scott. "After all, over 30 new emergent diseases
have appeared since 1970."
Return of the Black Death: The
World's Greatest Serial Killer (John Wiley &
Sons Canada) is available in Canada as of June 25.
|
