Plague Cemetary Excavations

[Minimalist]

http://lostcityoflondon.co.uk/2015/11/01...bury-1349/

The Black Death in London (Robert of Avesbury, 1349)

The writings of the poor bastards who lived through it are always fascinating.  Poor bastards didn't know what was killing them.

[abaris]

They did that before, in hoped of finding the actual origin and came up empty. There are some, who say, it couldn't have been what we know as the black or bubonic plague, since it spread too fast. Woulde be interesting if they actually found what caused the plague.

[Minimalist]

They did find indications of yersinia pestis on the bones of the victims but I don't know if they can determine the mechanism of infection by that alone.  As they say, bubonic plauge requires direct transmission from the rat flea and has a mortality rate of 50%.  The pneumonic strain is transmissible from person to person but would have a mortality rate of 90-100%.

The circumstantial evidence suggests the mortality rate of 50% is closer to what happened but the rapid spread of the plague was airborne.  I mean one could speculate that we are dealing with an unknown mutation which combined the pneumatic transmission with a lower mortality rate but, you know scientists.  Without evidence it is just pissing in the wind as far as they are concerned.   T'is a mystery!

Obviously the one thing we can agree on is that it wasn't "god" getting all pissy with them.

[abaris]

Some pope, then at Avignon, his behind a ring of fire. Can't be arsed to look up which one it was, right now. I'm sure there are some idiots arguing that it was god saving him, instead of the rats simply no tcrossing fire to infect him.

[Minimalist]

Clement VI.

[brewer]

Sorry. Couldn't help myself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs

Serious contribution.

http://www.cdc.gov/plague/faq/