Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-hzqq2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-04-18T06:28:33.283Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

3 Medieval and Modern Bubonic Plague: Some Clinical Continuities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2012

Lars Walløe
Lars Walløe
Affiliation:
Professor Lars Walløe, Department of Physiology, Institute of Basic medical Sciences, University of OsloPO Box 1103 Blindern, NO–0317 Oslo, Norway
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Medical History , Volume 52 , Supplement S27: Pestilential Complexities: Understanding Medieval Plague , 2008 , pp. 59 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2008. Published by Cambridge University Press

References

1 Samuel K Cohn, The Black Death transformed: disease and culture in early Renaissance Europe, London, Arnold, 2002. Cohn's more recent views are expressed in ch. 4 of this volume, ‘Epidemiology of the Black Death and successive waves of plague’, pp. 74–100.

2 Cohn, The Black Death transformed, op. cit., note 1 above, p. 2.

3 For example, Ole J Benedictow, Plague in the late medieval Nordic countries: epidemiological studies, Oslo, Middelalderforlaget, 1992.

4 For example, Daniel Defoe, A journal of the plague year, London, 1722.

5 Lancet, 1879, i: 281–2 , p. 281.

6 Ibid.; ‘Report on the French medical commission on plague in Astrakhan, 1878–91’, Lancet, 1880, ii: 634–5.

7 Lancet, 1879, i: 637–8.

8 Shibasaburo Kitasato, ‘The bacillus of bubonic plague’, Lancet, 1894, ii: 428–30, p. 430.

9 ‘The plague at Hong-Kong’, Lancet, 1894, ii: 269–70, p. 270.

10 ‘The plague in Hong-Kong’, Lancet, 1894, i: 1518.

11 Kitasato, op. cit., note 8 above, p. 429.

12 “La maladie sévissait depuis très longtemps, à l’état endémique, sur les hauts plateaux du Yunnam et avait fait, de temps à autre, quelques apparitions tout près de la frontière de nos possessions indo-chinoises, à Mong-tzé, à Lang-Tcheou et à Pakhoï.” A E J Yersin, ‘La peste bubonique à Hong Kong’, Annales de l'Institut Pasteur, 1894, 8: 662–7.

13 Lancet, 1894, i: 1518.

14 Louis Heyligen, ‘The plague in Avignon’, in Rosemary Horrox (trans. and ed.), The Black Death, Manchester University Press, 1994, pp. 41–5, on pp. 42–3.

15 Michele da Piazza, ‘Chronicle, 1347–1361’, in Horrox (trans. and ed.), op. cit., note 14 above, pp. 35–6.

16 Translated from Matthias Akiander, Utdrag ur Ryska Annaler (Excerpts from Russian Annals), Helsinki, Simelii, 1849, p. 107.

17 Ibid., p. 138.

18 Charles de Mertens, An account of the plague which raged at Moscow, in 1771, London, 1799, pp. 42–3.

19 Lars Walløe, ‘Pest og folketall 1350–1750’, Historisk Tidsskrift, 1982, 61: 1–45; also published as: Lars Walløe, Plague and population: Norway 1350–1750, Avhandlinger (Norske videnskaps-akademi), new series, No. 17, Oslo, University of Oslo, Department of Physiology, 1995, pp. 1–48.

20 ACP Medicine, New York, WebMD, 2007 (http://acpmedicine.com/cgi-bin/publiccgi.pl) section 7, ch. XI, W Conrad Liles, ‘Infections due to brucella, francisella, Yersinia pestis, and bartonella’, rev 9/07, pp. 7–9, and section 8, ch. V, Jeffrey Duckin, ‘Bioterrorism’, rev 6/04, pp. 13–14.

21 Stanley L Robbins, Textbook of pathology, 2nd ed., Philadelphia, Saunders, 1962, pp. 283–4.

22 William Hunter, ‘Buboes and their significance in plague’, Lancet, 1906, ii: 83–6.

23 Robbins, op. cit., note 21 above, pp. 283–4.

24 Hunter, op. cit., note 22 above.

25 Richard W Titball and E Diane Williamson, ‘Second and third generation plague vaccines’, ch. 30 in Mikael Skurnik, José Antonio Bengoechea, and Kaisa Granfors (eds), The genus Yersinia, New York, Kluwer, 2003.

26 Ralph R Isberg and Guy T Van Nhieu, ‘Two mammalian cell internalization strategies used by pathogenic bacteria’, Annual Rev. Genet., 1994, 28: 395–422.

27 Richard W Titball and E Diane Williamson, ‘Vaccination against bubonic and pneumonic plague’, Vaccine, 2001, 19: 4175–84.

28 D S Reed and M J Martinez, ‘Respiratory immunity is an important component of protection elicited by subunit vaccination against pneumonic plague’, Vaccine, 2006, 24: 2283–89; S R Morris, ‘Development of a recombinant vaccine against aerosolized plague’, Vaccine, 2007, 25: 3115–17.

29 T H Chen and K F Meyer, ‘Susceptibility and antibody response of Rattus species to experimental plague’, J. Infect. Dis., 1974, 129, suppl: S62–S71.

30 Robbins, op. cit., note 21 above, pp. 283–4.

31 Liles, op. cit., note 20 above, pp. 7–9.

32 For example, in current epizootics in Kazakhstan, according to a lecture by Sergey Pole at a plague conference in Oslo in 2005.

33 Didier Raoult, Gérard Aboudharam, Eric Crubézy, Georges Larrouy, Bertrand Ludes, and Michel Drancourt, ‘Molecular identification by “suicide PCR” of Yersinia pestis as the agent of medieval Black Death’, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 2000, 97 (23): 12800–803; Michel Drancourt and Didier Raoult, ‘Molecular insights into the history of plague’, Microbes Infect., 2002, 4: 105–9; Michel Drancourt, Véronique Roux, La Vu Dang, Lam Tran-Hung, Dominique Castex, Viviane Chenal-Francisque, Hiroyaki Ogata, Pierre-Edouard Fournier, Eric Crubézy, Didier Raoult, ‘Genotyping, Orientalis-like Yersinia Pestis, and plague pandemics’, Emerg. Infect. Dis., 2004, 10 (9): 1585–92; Ingrid Wiechmann and Gisela Grupe, ‘Detection of Yersinia pestis DNA in two early medieval skeletal finds from Aschheim (Upper Bavaria, 6th century A.D.)’, Am. J. Phys. Anthropol., 2005, 126: 48–55.

34 Susan Scott and Christopher Duncan, Biology of plagues: evidence from historical populations, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 384–9.

35 Graham Twigg, The Black Death: a biological reappraisal, London, Batsford, 1984, pp. 201, 219–21.

36 J F D Shrewsbury, A history of bubonic plague in the British Isles, Cambridge University Press, 1970, pp. 148–52.

37 Cohn, op. cit., note 1 above, p. 247.

38 C J Martin, ‘Discussion on the spread of plague’, Br. med. J., 1911, ii: 1249–63.

39 Report of the Indian Plague Commission, volume V, 1898–99, London, 1901, pp. 106, 108, 112, 113.

40 E H Hankin, ‘On the epidemiology of plague’, J. Hygiene, 1905, 5: 48–83, p. 66.

41 Report of the Indian Plague Commission, volume V, 1898–99, Reports from commissioners, inspectors, and others: 1901, ‘Local Government Board (Scotland)’, London, HMSO, 1901, pp. 55–62.

42 For example, W A Lethem, ‘The epidemiology of bubonic plague in Great Britain, with special reference to its spread by Pulex irritans’, J. State Med., 1923, 31: 508–15; C R Eskey, ‘Chief etiological factors of plague in Equador and the antiplague campaign’, Public Health Reports, 1930, 45: 2077–155.

43 David E Davis, John T Emlen and Allan W Stokes, ‘Studies on home range in the brown rat’, J. Mammol., 1948, 29: 207–25; H-J Telle, ‘Beitrag zur Kenntnis der Verhaltungsweise von Ratten, vergleichend dargestellt bei Rattus norvegicus und Rattus rattu's’, Zeitschrift für angevandte Zoologie, 1966, 53: 129–96; R F Ewer, ‘The biology and behaviour of a free-living population of black rats (Rattus rattus)’, Animal Behaviour Monographs, 1971, 4: 125–74.

44 Linda Houhamdi, Hubert Lepidi, Michel Drancourt, Didier Raoult, ‘Experimental model to evaluate the human body louse as a vector of plague’, J. Infect. Dis., 2006, 194: 1589–96.

45 Norman Gratz, ‘Rodent reservoirs and flea vectors of natural foci of plague’, in David T Dennis, Kenneth L Gage, Norman Gatz, Jack D Pound, Evgueni Tikhomirov, Plague manual: epidemiology, distribution, surveillance and control, Geneva, World Health Organization, 1999, pp. 63–96; Robert Pollitzer, ‘A review of recent literature on plague’, Bull. World Health Organ., 1960, 23: 313–400, pp. 357–62.

46 Reports from Commissioners, op. cit., note 41 above, pp. 55–62.

47 Lethem, op. cit., note 42 above; Eskey, op. cit., note 42 above; M Delanoë, ‘L'importance de la puce de l'homme, Pulex irritans, dans les épidémies de peste au Maroc’, Bulletin de la Société de Pathologie Exotique, 1932, 25: 958–60; G Blanc and M Baltazard, ‘Recherches expérimentales sur la peste: l'infection de la puce de l'homme, Pulex irritans L.’, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, 1941, 213: 813–16; A Laudisoit, H Leirs, R H Makundi, S Van Dongen, S Davis, S Neerinckx, J Deckers, R Libois, ‘Plague and the human flea, Tanzania’, Emerg. Infect. Dis., 2007, 13 (5): 687–93.

48 Robert Pollitzer, ‘Plague’, Bull. World Health Organ., 1960, 23: 313–400, p. 360.

49 A W Bacot and C J Martin, ‘Observations on the mechanism of the transmission of plague by fleas’, J. Hygiene, 1914, 13 (suppl 3): 423–39.

50 Albert L Burroughs, ‘Sylvatic plague studies: the vector efficiency of nine species of fleas compared with Xenopsylla cheopis’, J. Hygiene, 1947, 45: 371–96, p. 394.

51 R J Eisen, S W Bearden, A P Wilder, J A Montenieri, M F Antolin, and K L Gage, ‘Early-phase transmission of Yersinia pestis by unblocked fleas as a mechanism explaining rapidly spreading plague epizootics’, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 2006, 103 (42): 15380–85, on p. 15380; R J Eisen, J L Lowell, J A Montenieri, S W Bearden, K L Gage, ‘Temporal dynamics of early-phase transmission of Yersinia pestis by unblocked fleas’, J. med. Entomol., 2007, 44: 672–7.

52 J C Russell, The control of late ancient and medieval population, Philadelphia, The American Philosophical Society, 1985, pp. 111–38; J R Maddicott, ‘Plague in seventh-century England’, Past and Present, 1997, 156: 7–54; D Stathakopoulos, ‘The Justinianic plague revisited’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 2000, 24: 256–76; Wiechmann and Grupe, op. cit., note 33 above; Drancourt, et al., ‘Genotyping’, op. cit., note 33 above. Cf. Lester K Little (ed.), Plague and the end of Antiquity: the pandemic of 541–750, Cambridge University Press, 2007.

53 Lars Walløe, ‘Was the disruption of the Mycenaean world caused by repeated epidemics of Bubonic plague?’, Opuscula Atheniensia, 1999, 24: 121–6.

54 Cf. Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau,Les chemins de la peste: le rat, la puce et l'homme, Paris, Tallandier, 2007, arguing for the importance of Nosopsyllus fasciatus in northern Europe as a more likely vector than Xenopsylla cheopis.