{"product_id":"what-disease-was-plague-on-the-controversy-over-the-microbiological-identity-of-plague-epidemics-of-the-past-9789004180024","title":"What Disease was Plague?: On the Controversy over the Microbiological Identity of Plague Epidemics of the Past","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn recent decades, alternatives to the established bubonic-plague theory have been presented as to the microbiologcal identity and mechanism(s) of spread of historical plague epidemics. In this monograph, the six important alternative theories are intensively discussed in the light of the historical sources, the central primary studies and standard works on bubonic plague and the alternative microbiological agents, insofar as they are testable. These seven theories are incompatible and at least six of them must be untenable. In the author’s opinion, the arguments against the bubonic-plague theory and for all alternative theories are untenable. This monograph therefore also has been written also as a standard work on bubonic plague, giving a broad and in-depth presentation of the medical, epidemiological and historical evidence and the methodological tenets for identification of historical diseases by comparison with modern medical knowledge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"En líneas generales, Benedictow articula el libro en torno a tres ejes principales. Así, en el primero se encarga de definir las condiciones básicas para el desarrollo de la plaga bubónica en la Europa medieval, en el segundo pormenoriza las características definitorias de la epidemia y por último, una vez perfilado el cuadro de qué es y qué sabemos de la Peste Negra, se lanza a desmontar las teorías alternativas que han ido surgiendo en los últimos años, señalando sus defectos de forma y contenido.\"   - Alberto Reche (IEM), Medievalia, 2012, No. 15, 366-368 pp.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eList of Figures and Tables     xiii  Preface    xv    PART ONE: THE ISSUE  1. The Issue and the Problems     3  Introduction     3  The Human-Flea Theory of Plague Epidemiology      9  The Revisionists      16    PART TWO: HOW S.K. COHN MAKES PHYSICIANS AND HISTORIANS “SQUARE THE CIRCLE”  2. The Ethics of Scholarly Work      25  Introduction      25  How Cohn Makes Medical Scientists “Square the Circle”     26  Hankin 1: Cohn’s Attack on Hankin’s Observation of Inverse Correlation between Mortality and Population Density     34  Hankin 2: A Brief Study of Cohn’s Technique of Argument      38  “The Ugly Americans”      44  Cohn’s Accusations of Racism against J. Ashburton Thompson and L.F. Hirst      46  How Cohn Makes “Historians Square the Circle”      54  The Attack on Schofi eld (and Benedictow and L. Bradley)      62    PART THREE: BASIC CONDITIONS FOR BUBONIC PLAGUE IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE  3. Rats     73  Introduction: How to Study Rats in History     73  The Nature of Rats and the Frame of Reference of the Medieval Mind      78  The Question of the Presence of Rats and the Methodological Fallacy of Inference ex silentio      85  Ars Moriendi Rattorum: Where Have all the Dead Rats Gone?     91  Zoobiological and Zoogeographical Arguments on the Question of Signifi cant Presence of Black Rats in Medieval Europe     98  The Signifi cance of Evolutionary Th eory and Adaptation by Selection      116  Rat Bones: Material Evidence of the Presence of Rats in the Middle Ages      122  Sociology of Rat-Based Plague      142    4. The Spread of Bubonic Plague over Distances      151  Contiguous Spread and Metastatic Spread     151    5. Mortality in India      194  Effects of the Anti-epidemic Eff orts by British Colonial Authorities     194    6. Was Historical Plague a Viral or Bacterial Disease? The Question of Immunity     205  Introduction     205  Re-infection or Immunity?     212  Did Plague Become a Child Disease aft er the Black Death?     218  Plague according to Social Class, Age and Gender      235  A Demographic Case Study: Th e Necrology of the Monastery of San Domenico in Camporegio     245  The Real Problem and its Solution: Marriage Rates and Fertility Rates aft er the Black Death      268    PART FOUR: DEFINING FEATURES  Introduction: Concept of Defining Feature      277    7. Defining Feature 1: Latency Periods      279    8. Defining Feature 2: Inverse Correlation between Mortality Rate and Population Density     289  Introduction      289  More Data on the Inverse Correlation in India and Historical Europe     291  Scott and Duncan and the Correlation between Population Density and Mortality     301  Epilogue: Sweating Sickness and the Inverse Correlation      311    9. Defining Feature 3: Buboes as a Normal Clinical Feature in Epidemics      312  General Introduction      312  Contemporary Notions and Observations of Buboes (and Associated Secondary Clinical Manifestations)      322  Scott and Duncan: The Problem of Buboes      334  Cohn: The Problem of Buboes       340  Cohn and Boccaccio: Buboes, Pustules and Spots     359    10. Defining Feature 4: DNA of Yersinia pestis from Plague Graves       381    11. Defining Feature 5: Seasonality of Bubonic Plague      396  Introduction: Bubonic Plague’s Association with Moderately Warm Temperatures and Seasons      396  Seasonality of Historical Bubonic-Plague Epidemics with Emphasis on the Transseasonal Form     398  The Seasonality of Plague and Mortality in England 1340–1666       420  Duration of Vacancies in Parish Benefices during the Black Death     436  Temporal Relationship between the Territorial Spread of the Black Death and Increase in Institutions     463  Summary and Conclusion     482      PART FIVE: THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES  Introduction: The History and Essence of the Alternative Theories       487    12. The Beginning: Th e Alternative Theories of Shrewsbury and Morris      489  Shrewsbury: the Composite, Low-Intensity Theory      489  Morris: The Primary Pneumonic Theory      491    13. Gunnar Karlsson’s Alternative Theory: That Historical Plague was Pure Epidemics of Primary Pneumonic Plague      493  Introduction      493  Karlsson and Benedictow      495  Could Plague Have Come to Iceland from Anywhere?      502  Pure Epidemics of Primary Pneumonic Plague: Fact or Fiction?      511  Primary Pneumonic Plague in Manchuria: A Model for Iceland?      514  The Spontaneous Decline of Epidemics of Primary Pneumonic Plague      518  The Icelandic Climatic Th eory of Primary Pneumonic Plague      528  Mortality Rate of the Purported Plague Epidemics in Iceland      530  Summary: Why There Never Was a Plague Epidemic in Iceland      533  Was the Black Death in Bergen (Norway) 1349 Primary Pneumonic Plague?      536  Summary and Conclusion      550    14. Twigg’s Alternative Theory      553  Introduction      553  Th e Alternative Theory of Anthrax      555  Th e Historical Basis: The Use of Obsolete and Peripheral Studies      560  Th e Telluric-Miasmatic Th eory of Anthrax      562  Th e Pace of Spread of Plague      566  Anthrax and the Name Black Death      571  Anthrax’s Historical Association with Other Epizootics among Domestic Animals and Plague      574  Th e Black Death’s Origin and Spread and the Anthrax Theory      580  Twigg’s Demographic Argument      595  Concluding Remarks      608    15. The Alternative Theory of Scott and Duncan      610  Introduction      610  Disparaging Views of Historians and Physicians: Motive and Objective      611  The Material Scholarly Basis of Scott and Duncan’s Alternative Theory      615  The Demography of Historical Plague      628  The Reed-Frost Theory of Epidemiology      633  The Filoviridal Theory of Historical Plague: A Study in Academic Fiction      636  The Significance of Autopsies      653  Th e African Confinement      661  Summary and Conclusion      662    16. Cohn’s Alternative Theory      664    Epilogue      673 Appendix 1 Black Death Mortality in Siena: The Material Provided by the Necrology of the Monastery of San Domenico in Camporegio and Summarized in Table 5      675  Appendix 2 Th e Accounts of the Icelandic Epidemics of 1402–4 and 1494–5 Given in Icelandic Annals      680  Appendix 3 Th e Extrinsic Incubation Period and the Structure and Composition of the Latency Period      682  Glossary      688  Bibliography      693  Index of Subjects      717  Index of Geographical Names and People      730  Index of Names      740","brand":"Brill","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53210616201559,"sku":"9789004180024","price":271.2,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/what-disease-was-plague-on-the-controversy-over-the-microbiological-identity-of-plague-epidemics-of-the-past-9789004180024","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}