Never wanting to miss a chance, however petty, to whack the New York Times, as the son of a medievalist who had written about the "Black Death" it is my bounden duty to pick at the Grey Lady's headline: "Clues to Black Plague's Fury in 650-Year-Old Skeletons." There is no such thing as the "black plague." The disease in question is simply "plague," and it comes in three forms: bubonic, pneumonic, septicemic. The term "Black Death" refers to the specific plague pandemic that swept Europe in the 14th century. Plague at other times and places is not "black death." While septicemic plague can cause a certain blackening of the skin in the extremities, it is not "black plague." The "black" part of the Black Death was mostly metaphorical, arising from the suddenly and shocking mortality that would sweep a medieval village seemingly from nowhere, an apparently portent of the end of times.
Read the whole thing, and click through all the links, as TigerHawk provides a great discussion and some cool trivia.
The Black Death of 1348-1350 was the worst single attack of a series of attacks of epidemic disease in the 14th century. In some areas of Europe a half or a third of the population may have died; overall, in Europe, the death toll was perhaps a quarter of the population. An inquiry commissed by the papacy put the loss of life at 40 million! At one time fourteen hundred people died at Avignon in three days.
Technorati Tags: Black Death, plague, medieval history, TigerHawk
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