Telegraph

Black Death caused by 'ebola' virus, not rats By Robert Uhlig, Technology Correspondent (Filed: 22/11/2001)

THE Black Death was not caused by rats passing bubonic plague bacteria but by an ebola-like virus transmitted from person to person, British scientists said yesterday.

A study at Liverpool University suggests the disease that first appeared in Europe in 1347 and spread like wildfire for 300 years did not need insanitary conditions and could strike again at any time.

Prof Christopher Duncan, who led the study with Dr Susan Scott, said: "Intuitively, the Black Death has all the hallmarks of a viral disease. The history books are wrong."

Only one Black Death symptom, swollen glands in the armpit or groin, accords with bubonic plague. Other symptoms made bubonic plague a very unlikely cause.

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2001

Answers

This is what I just posted at TB:

I'd recommend Armies of Pestilence by RS Bray.

Bray goes into the history and theories about half a dozen major epidemic diseases and how they MAY have influenced history over time.

There is certainly a great deal of controversy about the nature of most of the epidemics through the first several centuries A.D. Occasionally there would be a very (medically) accurate account of the symptoms that would help nail the likelihood of what the disease really was. Much of the skepticism about the earliest accounts is whether certain diseases were really around during those times. Malaria is credited as being with "man" ever since the earliest evolutionary cutoffs, but most of the other diseases are apparently quite recent. There is also the possibility that some nasty diseases of those days no longer exist, or exist in a totally different form.

Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel also makes a convincing point that the epidemic diseases weren't going to give rise until certain population thresholds were met.

At any rate, I take this new study with a fair amount of skepticism. The three forms of plague are, I thought, quite well understood. There IS a pneumonic version of plague that is caused by the same pathogen, and we know that it is not spread by fleas (e.g., indirectly by rats). The alternative, to me, is that what we ascribed by Bubonic, and then pneumonic plague, was a different disease altogether. I'm not ready to accept that pneumonic plague is ebola.

The comment, "Intuitively, the Black Death has all the hallmarks of a viral disease. The history books are wrong." to me is B.S. Pneumonic plague is very easily spread by human contact and has nothing to do with sanitary conditions, but potentially quite a bit to do with overcrowding, which itself can be a result of disease.

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2001

I'd expect that it would have reared it's ugly head at least a few times over the last 300 years in Europe if it was an Ebola-like virus. (Ebola seems to hide for a while, then pop up.) Especially at times when people were all over the place, travelling a lot, and not in the greatest of health. Times like WW I & II? Why were there no sick or injured soldiers, living with muck a lot, that came down with it? Why didn't it take advantage of all those poor people who came down with Spanish Influenza in Europe during/after WW I? Just doesn't make sense.

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2001