Medieval people are known from their remains to have had good teeth - they had little access to sugar or sugary foods.
Sugar arrived from the tropics in Tudor times. Visible patches of tooth decay - showing that you could afford sugar - were for a time a status symbol.
Sugar soon came to sweep all classes. And "teeth" (blood poisoning from dental abscesses and the like) was a major cause of death in Early Modern England, causing 15-20% of deaths.
It reminds me of 19th century Viennese insisting on dancing waltzes and polkas on cinder floors, even though hordes of them died every year from the respiratory disorders that resulted.
"Thanks to recent studies of DNA from bodies from a far more distant period, we also know that the same illness had struck before a number of times, with cataclysmic results - in fact it had previously caused the collapse of an entire civilisation."
Indeed. Hence the reasons for what some call the "Sui-Justinian Divergence", why China was successfully re-united in the 6th Century under the Sui Emperor but Justinian failed to do the same with Rome.
It carries the implication that, the Black Death having happened not just once but maybe several times, it could happen again. However, all the brightest and best tell me that, guided by the slogan, “hands, face, space”, we’ll be fine.
It's sometime argued that if the medievals had been nicer to cats they would have had less trouble with the rat-transmitted plague. But plague is a very promiscuous disease; it can infect over a hundred different mammals that we know of-- and cats and dogs are both on that list. One way that the disease can make its way to humans today is when a cat or dog catches an infected rodent (easy to do if the creature is ill), picks up the fleas, and passes them on to its humans. I recall a sign in Rocky Mountain National Park warning visitors to keep their dogs well leashed as plague-infected rodents had been found there.
I remember at school learning about how the killing of dogs and cats was counter-productive, but i'm not sure they could have done much.
I will come to some of the measures. Milan had a pretty low death rate because of their ruthless public health policy; people in infected houses were simply boarded up.
Poland largely escaped unscathed, in part because King Casimir instituted a quarantine on the borders, and possibly because medieval Poland was cleaner and more hygienic than much of Europe.
It helped that the Poles had time to prepare as the plague initially spread west across the Mediterranean then north and back east (and also south into Africa). It did not reach Moscow, via Novgorod, until 1350.
The vast massacres of Jews in France and Germany (by far the worst pogroms of the Middle Ages) were equally futile.
Those massacres have been downplayed and hal4corded f-forgotten, because they were caused by panic and hysteria, not by that Wicked Catholicism, therefore don't play to the liberal agenda.
Whereas much smaller massacres caused by religion are recorded in every textbook.
Many Jews fled East, hence all the East European Jews with German names - e.g. "Deutscher" is a Jewish name.
Pope Clement VI may have been a bon vivant but he was outraged by the pogroms, excommunicated those responsible, and declared the Jews of Europe under his personal protection. To little effect, given the chaos of the day, though the Inquisition did manage to suppress the flagellants who were responsible for much of the bloodshed.
How much was the decline of feudalism CAUSED by the plague? which then led directly to the seeds of industrial revolution? (with the need to automate due to lack of people) and where we are now? Big question I know! Also, its fascinating how little comparitively it impacted Russia due to spatial differences between villages which in turn led to them being stuck effectively in feudalism right up to the Russian revolution.
As mentioned, the role of ship rats and more and more extensive maritime trade routes seem to be important. Didn’t the Black Death arrive in England via Weymouth? Exotic zoonosis = high mortality at first, but robust immunity in those who survive, who possibly had some genetic resilience which is passed on to their descendants?
From what I understand, the Third Plague Pandemic did indeed cause enormous numbers of deaths in India and China. In Hong Kong it led to a decisive shift in favour of Western medicine against what was seen as clearly ineffective traditional Chinese medicine, both at the level of the authorities (who previously didn't care) and at the level of the population. It even spread to port cities such as a Cape Town and Lisbon and caused localised epidemics. There were also many localised cases across Europe.
The main reason it didn't spread further was precisely because of the organised sanitisation and isolation of plague cases when they were found in the ports of the better organised European cities. Indeed it is noticeable that the diesease had its worst effect in Portugal, one of the poorest countries. The disease is sufficiently visibily terrifying and the death rate so high that any sceptism about public health measures that might be seen in say influenza, cholera or typhus tended to be overwhelmed by pure fear.
it killed several million deaths, but it behaved in different ways to the second pandemic, at least according to the various BD books I read in 2020; this may have been because the strain was different. I'm not sure how we would deal with an epidemic as contagious and fatal as the BD was today - hopefully we won't ever find out, and I guess Ebola is the biggest worry.
And yes as you say, maybe the sheer fear it creates is helpfu.
Overall people were healthier and better fed to start with. Survival rates were higher. And in many places there was enough understanding of the facts to assist in prevention. .
The official explanation of the Black Death at the time was an adverse alignmemt of the planets.
Also spread to California, with help from idiotic state officials who flatly refused to believe plague could be in the state until the Feds threatened to quarantine the whole state.
"Bad breath was one of the first signs. "
Given the deplorable standards of medieval dentistry, I'm surprised anyone could have told the difference between that and normal breath.
You know, I originally had something to that effect but took it out. probably should have kept in!
Medieval people are known from their remains to have had good teeth - they had little access to sugar or sugary foods.
Sugar arrived from the tropics in Tudor times. Visible patches of tooth decay - showing that you could afford sugar - were for a time a status symbol.
Sugar soon came to sweep all classes. And "teeth" (blood poisoning from dental abscesses and the like) was a major cause of death in Early Modern England, causing 15-20% of deaths.
It reminds me of 19th century Viennese insisting on dancing waltzes and polkas on cinder floors, even though hordes of them died every year from the respiratory disorders that resulted.
yeah this is why I took it out. I'm not certain it would have been the case.
British dentistry improved a lot during WW2, just as levels of cirrhosis in France hugely dropped.
Yes, worse teeth is another way that the Early Modern Period was in many ways more stereotypically "medieval" than the actual Middle Ages:
https://x.com/LandsknechtPike/status/1771215288521929190
Gruesome, but fascinating.
thank you!
"Thanks to recent studies of DNA from bodies from a far more distant period, we also know that the same illness had struck before a number of times, with cataclysmic results - in fact it had previously caused the collapse of an entire civilisation."
Indeed. Hence the reasons for what some call the "Sui-Justinian Divergence", why China was successfully re-united in the 6th Century under the Sui Emperor but Justinian failed to do the same with Rome.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_studies_of_the_Roman_and_Han_empires
An alternate history video showing what may have happened in a reality without the Justinianic Plague:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEPLwJ4wow
Having left that last paragraph hanging like a serialised Dickens novel, I hope you are going to expand on it in your next post!
of course!
It carries the implication that, the Black Death having happened not just once but maybe several times, it could happen again. However, all the brightest and best tell me that, guided by the slogan, “hands, face, space”, we’ll be fine.
Maybe we can teleport Fauci to them.
It's sometime argued that if the medievals had been nicer to cats they would have had less trouble with the rat-transmitted plague. But plague is a very promiscuous disease; it can infect over a hundred different mammals that we know of-- and cats and dogs are both on that list. One way that the disease can make its way to humans today is when a cat or dog catches an infected rodent (easy to do if the creature is ill), picks up the fleas, and passes them on to its humans. I recall a sign in Rocky Mountain National Park warning visitors to keep their dogs well leashed as plague-infected rodents had been found there.
I remember at school learning about how the killing of dogs and cats was counter-productive, but i'm not sure they could have done much.
I will come to some of the measures. Milan had a pretty low death rate because of their ruthless public health policy; people in infected houses were simply boarded up.
Poland largely escaped unscathed, in part because King Casimir instituted a quarantine on the borders, and possibly because medieval Poland was cleaner and more hygienic than much of Europe.
It helped that the Poles had time to prepare as the plague initially spread west across the Mediterranean then north and back east (and also south into Africa). It did not reach Moscow, via Novgorod, until 1350.
It is said that Arabs like cats because they catch mice that otherwise would be food for snakes.
The vast massacres of Jews in France and Germany (by far the worst pogroms of the Middle Ages) were equally futile.
Those massacres have been downplayed and hal4corded f-forgotten, because they were caused by panic and hysteria, not by that Wicked Catholicism, therefore don't play to the liberal agenda.
Whereas much smaller massacres caused by religion are recorded in every textbook.
Many Jews fled East, hence all the East European Jews with German names - e.g. "Deutscher" is a Jewish name.
Pope Clement VI may have been a bon vivant but he was outraged by the pogroms, excommunicated those responsible, and declared the Jews of Europe under his personal protection. To little effect, given the chaos of the day, though the Inquisition did manage to suppress the flagellants who were responsible for much of the bloodshed.
What about Dick Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, and his legendary cat ?
How much was the decline of feudalism CAUSED by the plague? which then led directly to the seeds of industrial revolution? (with the need to automate due to lack of people) and where we are now? Big question I know! Also, its fascinating how little comparitively it impacted Russia due to spatial differences between villages which in turn led to them being stuck effectively in feudalism right up to the Russian revolution.
I think it probably sped up what was already in motion, in western Europe at least. in eastern Europe it increased afterwards.
As mentioned, the role of ship rats and more and more extensive maritime trade routes seem to be important. Didn’t the Black Death arrive in England via Weymouth? Exotic zoonosis = high mortality at first, but robust immunity in those who survive, who possibly had some genetic resilience which is passed on to their descendants?
Apparently one of the first signs that you'd got the Plague, was a haunting and poetic illusion that you could smell apples.
Sadly, things then went downhill; went "pear-shaped" as journalists say.
Olfactory hallucination, rather than an illusion?
When fearful rumours of the approaching Plague swept Italy, few Italians flocked to church.
A large majority swept to taverns, brothels and other dens of iniquity. "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may."
It's said that you can't discern a person's real character and priorities until they're scared or disaster approaches.
From what I understand, the Third Plague Pandemic did indeed cause enormous numbers of deaths in India and China. In Hong Kong it led to a decisive shift in favour of Western medicine against what was seen as clearly ineffective traditional Chinese medicine, both at the level of the authorities (who previously didn't care) and at the level of the population. It even spread to port cities such as a Cape Town and Lisbon and caused localised epidemics. There were also many localised cases across Europe.
The main reason it didn't spread further was precisely because of the organised sanitisation and isolation of plague cases when they were found in the ports of the better organised European cities. Indeed it is noticeable that the diesease had its worst effect in Portugal, one of the poorest countries. The disease is sufficiently visibily terrifying and the death rate so high that any sceptism about public health measures that might be seen in say influenza, cholera or typhus tended to be overwhelmed by pure fear.
it killed several million deaths, but it behaved in different ways to the second pandemic, at least according to the various BD books I read in 2020; this may have been because the strain was different. I'm not sure how we would deal with an epidemic as contagious and fatal as the BD was today - hopefully we won't ever find out, and I guess Ebola is the biggest worry.
And yes as you say, maybe the sheer fear it creates is helpfu.
Overall people were healthier and better fed to start with. Survival rates were higher. And in many places there was enough understanding of the facts to assist in prevention. .
The official explanation of the Black Death at the time was an adverse alignmemt of the planets.
Also spread to California, with help from idiotic state officials who flatly refused to believe plague could be in the state until the Feds threatened to quarantine the whole state.