A plague of plagues: The problem of plague diagnosis in medieval England

Journal of Interdisciplinary History

Volumn 37, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 371-393

  Theilmann, John ^a   Cate, Frances ^b  

^a Department of Psychology   (United States)

^b MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33846046348     PISSN: 00221953     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/jinh.2007.37.3.371     Document Type: Review

References (162)

1. Justus Friedrich Carl Hecker (trans. B.G. Babington), The Black Death in the Fourteenth Century (London, 1833).
2. Susan Scott and C.J. Duncan, The Black Death: A Biological Reappraisal (New York, 1984);
3. idem, Return of the Black Death (Chichester, 2004); Samuel K. Cohn, Jr., The Black Death Transformed (London, 2002).
4. Antonia Gransden, "A Fourteenth-Century Chronicle from the Grey Friars of Lynn," English Historical Review, LXXII (1957), 274;
5. Edward Maunde Thompson (ed.), Adae Murimuth continuate chronica Robertus de Avesbury de gestis mirabilibus regis Edwardi Tertii (Rolls Series, 93, 1889), 406;
6. Ranulf Higden (ed. C. Bubington and Joseph Rawson Lurnby). Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden monachi Cestrenis (Rolls Series, 41, 1866), 11, 213;
7. J. M. J. Fletcher, "The Black Death in Dorset (1348-49)," Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club, XLIII (1922), 1-14.
8. H. Galbraith (ed.), The Anonimalle Chronicle, 1333-1381 (Manchester, 1927), 30;
9. P. Scott Haydon (ed.), Eulogium Chronicon sive temporis (Rolls Series, 9, 1858), 1, 344;
10. Geoffrey Howard Martin (ed.), Knighton's Chronicle, 1337-1396 (New York, 1995), 98-99;
11. E. Boucher, "The Black Death in Bristol," Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, LX (1938), 31-46;
12. Thomas Beaumont James, "The Black Death in Hampshire," Hampshira Papars, XVIII (1999), 9;
13. E. M. Thompson (ed.), Avesbury, 406-407, 409.
14. Richard Lomas, "The Black Death in County Durham," Journal of Medieval History, XV (1989), 127-140;
15. A. Hamilton Thompson, "The Pestilence of the Fourteenth Century in the Diocese of York," Archaeological Journal, LXXI (1914), 97-154;
16. Edward Augustus Bond (ed.), Chronica monasteril de Melsa (Rolls Series, 43, 1868), III, 36-37;
17. A. H., Thompson, "Registers of John Gynewell, Bishop of Lincoln, for the Years 1347-1350," Archaeological Journal, LXVIII (1911), 300-360.
18. E. M. Thompson, Avesbury, 407;
19. Martin, Knighton, 98-99;
20. E. M. Thompson (ed.), Chronica Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke (Oxford, 1899), 98-99.
21. Ole J. Benedictow, The Black Death (Woodbridge, 2004), 27, 32,
22. provides an extensive discussion regarding the various sources of medieval mortality information. John Hatcher, "Mortality in the Fifteenth Century: Some New Evidence," Economic History Review, XXXIV (1986), 20;
23. E. H. Thompson, "Pestilence in York," 111-113. The situation in York contrasts with a clerical mortality rate of 36% among the clergy of Coventry and Lichfield diocese. R. A. Davies, "The Effect of the Black Death on the Parish Priests of the Medieval Dioceses of Coventry and Lichfield," Historical Research, LXII (1989), 87.
24. Robert S. Gottfried, The Black Death (New York, 1983), 65;
25. J. L. Fisher, "The Black Death in Essex," The Essex Review, LII (1943), 12-20;
26. John Aberth, "The Black Death in the Diocese of Ely: The Evidence of the Bishop's Register," Journal of Medieval History, XXI (1995), 275-287;
27. Barbara Megson, "Mortality Among London Citizens in the Black Death," Medieval Prosopography, XIX (1998), 125.
28. Zvi Razi, Life, Marriage and Death in a Medieval Parish (New York, 1980), 102-104;
29. Benedictow, Black Death, 262, 368, 377.
30. Martin, Knighton, 184-185;
31. Gransden, "Chronicle of the Grey Friars," 275;
32. Galbraith, Anouimalle Chronicle, 77;
33. Thomas Walsingham (ed. H.T. Riley), Historia Anglicana (Rolls Series, 28, 1863;1864), I, 411; II, 163-164;
34. C. Hector and Barbara F. Harvey (eds.), The Westminster Chronicle, 1381-1394 (New York, 1982), 438-439.
35. Dorthea W. Singer, "Some Plague Tractates (Fourteenth arid Fifteenth Centuries)," Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, IX (1916), 159-214.
36. In addition to Singer, a more complete account may be found in Anna M. Campbell, The Black Death and Men of Learning (New York, 1931).
37. Today, most historians of medicine question the viability of retrospective diagnoses using historical evidence. Accordingly, this article approaches the question from a biological perspective that takes the documentary evidence into account.
38. Graham Twigg, The Black Death: A Biological Reappraisal (New York, 1984);
39. Scott arid Duncan, Biology of Plagues; idem, Return of the Black Death;
40. Cohn, Black Death Transformed.
41. In a review of Twigg's Black Death,
42. Gottfried, Speculum, LXI (1986), 217-219,
43. finds numerous historical and biological errors. In a review of Cohn's Black Death Transformed,
44. Daniel Lord Smail, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XXXIV (2004), 622-623,
45. finds conclusive evidence that the great pestilence was not the plague. On the other hand, Ann Carmichael, "Review Essay: Plagues and More Plagues," Early Science and Medicine, VIII (2003), 253-266,
46. is sharply critical of the books by Scott and Duncan and by Cohn. Josiah Cox Russell, "Effects of Pestilence and Plague, 1315-1385," Comparative Studies in Society and History, VIII (1966), 464-473,
47. concludes that by 1385, the population of England had declined by 40 to 50%. P. Jeremy Goldberg, "Introduction," in W. Mark Ormrod and Philip G. Lindley (eds.), The Black Death in England (Stamford, 1996), 4, indicates a 45% mortality rate;
48. Thomas V. Inglesby et al., "Plague as a Biological Weapon," Journal of the American Medical Association, CCLXXIII (2000), 2282. Today, various antibiotic treatments are available for plague (2286).
49. Carol Benedict, Bubonic Plague in Nineteenth-Century China (Stanford, 1996);
50. Cohn, Black Death Transformed, 133-134.
51. Twigg, Black Death, 185;
52. J. F. D.. Shrewsbury, A History of the Bubonic Plague in the British Isles (New York, 1970), 123-125.
53. Cohn, Black Death Transformed, 43-44, 186;
54. Koenraad Bleukxx, "Was the Black Death (1348-49) a Real Plague Epidemic? England as a Case Study," in Welmer Verbecke et al. (eds.), Serta devote in memoriam Guillehemi Lourdaux (Louvain, 1992), II, 64-113;
55. Twigg, Black Death, 75;
56. Scott and Duncan, Biology, 357.
57. David E. Davis states that rats were not responsible for the spread of the plague in the fourteenth century, contending that most deaths came from pneumonic plague (Davis, "The Scarcity of Rats and the Black Death: An Ecological History," Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XVI [1986], 461).
58. Megson, "Mortality among London Citizens," 133; E. M. Thompson, "Pestilence in York," 152;
59. idem., "Registers of Gynewell," 358.
60. Cohn's argument, Black Death Transformed, 212, that humans have no immunity to plague is not entirely valid; limited immunity is possible in certain circumstances.
61. Stephen R. Ell, "Immunity as a Factor in the Epidemiology of Medieval Plague," Reviews of Infectious Diseases, VI (1984), 866-879;
62. A. Wake, H. Morita, and M. Wake, "Mechanisms of Long and Short Term Immunity to Plague," Immunology, XXXIV (1978), 1045-1052.
63. Gionvanni Boccaccio (trans. M. Rigg) The Decameron (London, 1921;
64. orig. pub. 1353), I, 5-11; Chronica Galfridi le Baker, 98-99;
65. Cohn, Black Death Transformed, 64-65, 77-78.
66. Cohn, Black Death Transformed, 247;
67. Scott and Duncan, Biology, 356, 384-389;
68. idem, Retum, 173;
69. idem, "What Caused the Black Death?" Postgraduate Medical Journal, LXXXI (2005), 317;
70. Twigg, Black Death, 213-218;
71. idem, "The Black Death: A Population-Wide Infection," Local Population Studies, LXXI (2003), 40-52;
72. Shrewsbury, History of Plague, 224-225.
73. Wendy Orent, Plague (New York, 2004). Orent provides a good introduction to the debate between American and Russian scientists (33-60).
74. Shrewsbury, History of Plague, 197, 124-125;
75. Cohn, Black Death Transformed, 62.
76. Jim Bolton, '"The World Upside Down': Plague as an Agent of Social Change," in Ormrod and Lindley (eds.), Black Death in England, 26;
77. Razi, Life, Marriage and Death, 22-34;
78. R. M. Smith, "Demographic Developments in Rural England, 1300-48: A Survey," in Bruce M. S. Campbell (ed.), Before the Black Death (Manchester, 1991), 44-47.
79. The debate concerning the use of parish records to obtain medieval demographic information is complex arid unresolved. Razi argues for their value, and Smith arid Poos are highly critical of them. See Lawrence R. Poos, Razi, arid Smith, "The Population History of Medieval English Villages: A Debate on the Use of Manor Court Records," in Razi and Smith (eds.), Medieval Society and the Manor Court (New York, 1996), 298-368.
80. D. M. Ferber and Robert R. Brubaker, "Plasmids in Yersinia pestis," Infection and Immunity, XXXI (1981), 839-841;
81. Kathleen A. McDonough et al., "Mutations in the pla Gene of Yersina pestis Alters the Course of the Plague-Flea Siphonaptera: Geratophyllidae Interaction,"
82. Journal of Medical Entomology, XXX (1993), 772-780;
83. Guy R. Cornelius et al., "The Virulean Plasmid of Yersina, an Antihost Genome," Microbiology and Molecular Biology Review, LXII (1998), 135-152;
84. Brubaker, "Factors Promoting Acute and Chronic Diseases Caused by Yersiniae," Clinical Microbiology Reviews, IV (1991), 315-320;
85. Ell, "Immunity as a Factor," 873-876, 868; Wake, Morita, and Wake, "Mechanisms of Immunity," 1049-1050; E.-R. Brygoo and S. Rajenison, "Recerche d' une immunité paraspécifique pour le bacilli de Yersin chez des souris inoculées avec Salmonelles," Archives de l' Institut Pasteur de Madagascar, LXI (1972), 13-16.
86. Mark Achtman et al., "Yersinia pestis, the Cause of Plague, is a Recently Emerged Clone of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis," Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, XCVI (1999), 14043-14048;
87. Andrey P. Anisimov, Luther E. Lindler, and Gerald B. Pier, "Intraspecific Diversity of Yersinia pestis,' Clinical Microbiology Reviews, XVII (2004), 436-442.
88. Achtman et al., "Cause of Plague," 14043-14048;
89. Anisimov, Lindler, and Pier, "Intraspecific Diversity of Yersinia pestis, 436-442.;
90. V. Suntsov and N. I. Suritsova, "Ecological Aspects of the Evolution of the Plague Microbe Yersinia pestis and the Genesis of Natural Foci," Biology Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences, XXVII (2000), 541-552.
91. Achtman et al., "Cause of Plague," 14043, 14047;
92. P. S. G. Chain, "Insights into the Evolution of Yersinia pestis through Whole-Genome Comparison with Yersinia pseudotuberculosis, " Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, CI (2004), 13826-13831;
93. Roland Rosqvist, Mikael Skurnik, and Hans Wolf-Watz, "Increased Virulence of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis by Two Independent Mutations," Nature, CCCXXIV (1988), 525.
94. Christopher Wills, Yellow Fever, Black Goddess (Reading, Mass., 1996), 4,
95. provides a more general discussion of the evolution of plague. It is almost necessary for Y. pestis to kill its host to be transmitted to a new host via fleabite (Brubaker, "Factors Promoting Diseases Caused by Plague," 320). Vladimir L. Motin et al., "Genetic Variability of Yersinia pestis Isolates as Predicted by PCR-Based IS 100 Genotyping and Analysis of Structural Genes Encoding Glycerol-3-Phosphate Dehydrogenase (glp D)," Journal of Bacteriology, LXXXIV (2002), 1026.
96. William McNeill, Plagues and People (Garden City, 1976), 173-174;
97. Paul W. Ewald, Evolution of Infectious Disease (New York, 1994), 34-55;
98. B. Joseph Hinnebusch, "Bubonic Plague: A Molecular Case History of the Emergence of an Infectious Disease, "Journal of Molecular Medicine, LXXV (1997), 649.
99. Florent Sebbane et al., "Role of the Yersinia pestis Plasminogen Activator in the Incidence of Distinct Septicemie and Bubonic Forms of Flea-Borne Plague," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, CIII (2006), 5526-5530.
100. A 1998 outbreak of bubonic and pneumonic plague in Madagascar proved to be some-what resistant to treatment with antibiotics. R. Migliani et al., "Résurgence de la peste dans le District d'Ikongo à Madagascar en 1998," Bulletin de la Societe de pathologie exotique, XCIV (2001), 118;
101. Mahery Ratsitorahiria et al., "Epidemiological and Diagnostic Aspects of the Outbreak of Pneumonic Plague in Madagascar," Lancet, CCCLV (2000), 113;
102. R. Galimand et al., "Multidrug Resistance in Yersinia pestis Mediated by a Transferable Plasmid," New England Journal of Medicine, CCCXXXVII (1997), 677-680;
103. L.-T. Wu, "First Report of the North Manchurian Plague Prevention Service, "Journal of Hygiene, XIII (1913-1914), 237-290;
104. idem, "Plague in the Orient with Special Reference to the Manchurian Outbreaks, "Journal of Hygiene, XXI (1922-1923), 62-76;
105. Bendictow, Black Death, 30;
106. Scott and Duncan, Biology of Plagues, 70;
107. Raymond Gani and Steve Leach, "Epidemiologic Determinants for Modeling Pneumonic Plague Outbreaks," Emerging Infectious Diseases, X (2004), 608-613.
108. Karl F. Meyer, "Pneumonic Plague," Bacteriological Reviews, XXV (1961), 249-260;
109. Gunnar Karlsson, "Plague without Rats: The Case of Fifteenth-Century Iceland," Journal of Medieval History, XXII (1996), 263-284.
110. Benedictow, Plague in the Late Medieval Nordic Countries (Oslo, 1992), 214-227, denies the possibility of a solely pneumonic plague outbreak in Iceland. One reason why a flea-borne aliment might riot have had been able to establish itself in Scandinavia was the religious practice of burning the bedstraw of the deceased, which would have destroyed an important flea habitat
111. (Thomas A. DuBois, Nordic Religions in the Viking Age [Philadelphia, 1999], 103).
112. Jean-Marc Gabastou et al., "An Outbreak of Plague Including Cases with Probably Pneumonic Infection, Ecuador, 1998," Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, XCIV (2000), 387-391;
113. Migliani et al., "Résurgence de la peste," 115-118; Ratsitorahina et al., "Epidemiological and Diagnostic Aspects," 111-113. Gani and Leach, "Epidemiological Determinants," 613, indicate that stochastic effects can produce a significant outbreak of primary pneumonic plague.
114. Wu Lien-Teh (Wu Liande), Plague Fighter (New York, 1959), 81, 83, 95;
115. Wu, "Plague in the Orient," 63, 66;
116. idem, "The Second Pneumonic Plague Epidemic in Manchuria, 1920-21," Journal of Hygiene, XXI (1922-23), 265-266.
117. Wu Liande's account of the 1910/11 out-break should now be supplemented by Mark Gamsu, "The Epidemic of Pneumonic Plague in Manchuria 1910-1911," Past & Present, 190 (2006), 147-183.
118. Wu Liande's figures, particularly for the third epidemic, must be viewed with caution; he had an incentive to underestimate the death rate in order to show the efficacy of the Plague Prevention Service, which he headed. Gamsu, "Epidemic of Pneumonic Plague in Manchuria," 162.
119. Wu, "Plague in the Orient," 66, 67;
120. idem, "Second Pneumonic Plague Epidemic," 265, 271.
121. Mohamad Daya and Yoko Nakamora, "Pulmonary Disease from Biological Agents, Anthrax, Plague, Q. Fever, arid Tularemia," Critical Care Clinics, XXI (2005), 761;
122. Jack D. Poland arid David T. Dennis, "Diagnosis and Clinical Manifestations," in Plague Manual: Epidemiology, Distribution, Surveillance and Control (Geneva, 1999), 48;
123. Gani and Leech, "Epidemiologic Determinants," 610.
124. Benedictow, Black Death, 22-24, points out the numerous secondary effects on children stemming from an epidemic disease, such as loss of care and malnutrition.
125. Cohn, Black Death Transformed, 186.
126. Robert D. Perry and Jacqueline D. Fetherson, "Yersinia pestis: Etiological Agent of Plague," Clinical Microbiology Review, X (1997), 53, 51;
127. Burroughs, "Sylvatic Plague Studies," 387, 393;
128. Gabastou et al., "Outbreak of Plague, Ecuador," 389;
129. Orent, Plague, 121;
130. Baltazard and B. Seydian, "Enquête sur les conditions de à peste au Moyen-Orient," Bulletin of the World Health Organization, XXIII (1960), 157-167.
131. Jean-Noël Biraberi, Les homme et la peste en France et dans les pays européens et méditerranéens (Paris, 1975/76), 1, 13,
132. argues that human fleas played an important role in the transmission of plague in the Middle Ages. In a study of sylvatic plague, Burroughs," Sylvatic Plague," 391, found that X. cheopis was the ideal plague carrier but that other varieties of fleas, including P. irritans, could become blocked and transmit the plague bacillus. Ell, "Interhuman Transmission of Medieval Plague," Bulletin of the History of Medicine, LIV (1980), 502-503;
133. E. M. Thompson, Avesbury, 467.
134. Cohn, Black Death Transformed, 43;
135. Anisnov, Lindler, and Pier, "Intraspecific Diversity of Yersinia pestis," 443, 446;
136. Perry and Fetherson, "Etiologic Agent of Plague," 54; Hinnebusch, "Bubonic Plague," 651;
137. Ell, "Interhuman Transmission of Medieval Plague," 502-503; Karlssou, "Plague without Rats," 281-284.
138. Martin (ed.), Knighton's Chronicle, 98-99;
139. E. M. Thompson, Avesbury, 409.
140. Andrew Cunningham, "Transforming Plague: The Laboratory and the Identity of Infectious Disease," in idem and Perry Williams (eds.), The Laboratory Revolution in Medicine (New York, 1992), 209, 242.
141. Michel Drancourt et al., "Detection of 400-Year-Old Yersinia pestis DNA in Human Dental Pulp: An Approach to the Diagnosis of Ancient Septicemia, " Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, XCV (1998), 12637-12640;
142. Didier Raoult et al., "Molecular Identification by 'Suicide PCR' of Yersinia pestis as the Agent of Medieval Black Death," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, XCVII (2000), 12800-12803;
143. Raoult and Drancourt, "Cause of the Black Death," Lancet: Infectious Diseases, II (2002), 459;
144. Drancourt and Raoult, "Molecular Detection of Yersinia pestis in Dental Pulp," Microbiology, CL (2004), 263-264.
145. PCR-polymerase chain reaction - is a technique that enables researchers to replicate accurately and efficiently copies of a segment of nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) for further comparison and study. Care must be taken to avoid contaminating the sample at all stages. James Wood and Sharon DeWitte-Avina, "Was the Black Death Yersinial Plague?" Lancet: Infectious Diseases, III (2003), 327-328;
146. Thomas Gilbert et al., "Absence of Yersinia pestis-specific DNA in Human Teeth from Five European Excavations of Putative Plague Victims," Microbiology, CL (2004), 341-354;
147. Michael B. Prentice, Tom Gilbert, and Alan Cooper, "Was the Black Death Caused by Yersinia pestis?" Lancet: Infectious Diseases, IV (2004), 72;
148. Carsten M. Pusch et al., "Yersinial Fi Antigen and the Cause of the Black Death," Lancet: Infectious Dueases, IV (2004), 484-485.
149. Tests for the Fi antigen in seventeenth-century DNA samples raise the question of the accuracy of PCR results. Alan Cooper arid Hendrik N. Poinar, "Ancient DNA: Do It Right or Not at All," Science, CCLXXXIX (2000), 1139, provide a useful approach for testing premodern DNA.
150. William G. Naphy and A.W. Spicer, The Black Death (Stroud, 2000), 56.
151. Scott and Duncan, Biology of Plagues, 384-389;
152. Daya and Nakamora, "Pulmonary Disease from Biological Agents," 761.
153. A standard account of the 1918/19 influenza epidemic remains Alfred W. Crosby, America's Forgotten Pandemic (New York, 1985).
154. Alan Dyer, "The English Sweating Sickness of 1551: An Epidemic Anatomized,'' Medical History, XLI (1999), 382-383;
155. Mark Taviner, Guy Thwaites, and Vanya Gant, "The English Sweating Sickness, 1485-1551: A Viral Pulmonary Diease?" Medical History, XLII (1998), 96-98;
156. Thwaites, Taviner, and Gant, "The English Sweating Sickness of 1485-1551," New England Journal of Medicine, CCCXXXVI (1997), 580-582;
157. Eric Bridson, "The English 'Sweate' (Sudor Anglicus) and Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome," British Journal of Biomedical Science, LVIII (2001), 1-6.
158. Regarding fourteenth-century Florence, Ann Carmichael, Plague and the Poor in Renaissance Florence (New York, 1986), 26,
159. observes that the interaction between clinical information and epidemiological information is as difficult for lay persons today to understand as it was for people in the Middle Ages. See also idem, "Contagion Theory and Contagion Practice in Fifteenth-Century Milan," Renaissance Quarterly, XLIV (1991), 229.
160. Bolton, "World Upside Down," 27
161. Anisimov, Lindler, and Pier, "Intraspecific Diversity of Yersinia pestis," 434-464;
162. Achtman et al., "Yersinia pestis, the Cause of Plague," 14043-14048.