
The Black Death: The Greatest Catastrophe (2005) - dmlhllnd
http://www.historytoday.com/ole-j-benedictow/black-death-greatest-catastrophe-ever
======
nxzero
Related topic is the "Great Dying" which killed the majority of Native
Americans:

[http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html](http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html)

Of note is how smallpox was used as a weapon:

>> "You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians, by means of blankets, as
well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable
race." — Jeffery Amherst

Sources:

Disease as a weapon against Native Americans
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_epidemics)

Smallpox Blankets
[http://cherokeeregistry.com/index.php?option=com_content&vie...](http://cherokeeregistry.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=407&Itemid=617)

~~~
baldfat
I am proud to be an American but ...

We used Germ Warfare to a whole new level vs Native Americans. (Germ warfare
was used throughout history AKA throwing dead things into fortifications etc)

We are the only country to have used Nuclear Weapons

But in terms of killing nothing compares to Mosquitoes with them spreading
malaria, dengue and yellow fever. Malaria kills 2,700,000 a year.

~~~
jqm
I live in the US but I'm not taking credit for the smallpox thing. That was
the doing of a few people at most, and I'm not one of them. I don't think it
was even official policy, so my great grandfathers vote can't be implicated
either.

I get very tired of the collective American guilt trip. I don't see how it
does anyone any good.

~~~
baldfat
Or the collective not my issue I wasn't alive pass the buck.

So what I got a full deck of cards and you got less. It wasn't my system so
deal with it and don't make me own my advantage.

~~~
pavel_lishin
It's possible to affect positive change without being burdened by personal or
historical guilt.

~~~
baldfat
Yeah that worked so well US certainly doesn't have people caring about our
past and trying to kill us.

~~~
pavel_lishin
If you want everyone to love you, be a kitten.

There isn't a country or a demographic in the world that isn't hated by
_someone_.

~~~
baldfat
Switzerland? New Zealand?

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _Switzerland?_

I'd wager that some people are pretty unhappy with their behavior during World
War II.

> _New Zealand?_

I've got nothin'.

------
BorisVSchmid
"Published in History TodayVolume 55 Issue 3 March 2005"

The article is a bit old, and misses out on the large amount of genetic
evidence since then sequenced and analyzed. Cui et al found that the closest
living relatives to the Black Death stem from north-west China. That is about
the only evidence we have on where the Black Death came from, and it does
point to an origin in or near China.

[http://www.pnas.org/content/110/2/577.figures-
only](http://www.pnas.org/content/110/2/577.figures-only)

------
halov
"If you hear of an outbreak of plague in a land, do not enter it; but if the
plague breaks out in a place while you are in it, do not leave that place."

~~~
smegel
What is that from and what does it mean?

~~~
Udo
It's apparently from a muslim religious text. I found this very interesting
because it's a rule that covers both self-preservation ("don't enter the
infected zone") and quarantine ("if infected, stay where you are"). It's an
early containment protocol.

What seems most fascinating to me is that by proscribing this from a religious
channel, you can circumvent psychological mechanisms that would otherwise
cause people to act in their own self interest - and in this case it
_actually_ works for the greater good.

~~~
pete_b
Somewhat earlier, ~1400 BC, the book of Leviticus chapters 13-14 detail
quarantine procedures for infectious disease.

------
epimetheus
As mentioned in another comment, smallpox has killed more than it's fair share
of humans. An estimated 300 million in the 20th century alone[0].

Maybe lesser known is the Spanish Flu which killed more than 50 million people
worldwide within 2 years (1918, 1919). The strangest thing is that it seems to
have largely targeted young and healthy adults (it, like the Black Plague,
seems to have originated in China[1]).

[0]
-[http://www.who.int/about/bugs_drugs_smoke_chapter_1_smallpox...](http://www.who.int/about/bugs_drugs_smoke_chapter_1_smallpox.pdf)
[1] -
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140123-spani...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140123-spanish-
flu-1918-china-origins-pandemic-science-health/)

~~~
cstross
The Spanish flu's mortality isn't that mysterious today (samples have been
extracted from victims buried in cold climates, and its genome sequenced). It
turns out that in young, healthy victims it provokes a cytokine storm -- an
overreaction by the immune system that causes a massive inflammatory response
and fluid build-up in the lungs (with potential for secondary bacterial
infection). Ironically, older or younger victims with weaker immune systems
were less likely to succumb to this reaction:

More here:
[https://www.scripps.edu/news/press/2014/20140227oldstonerose...](https://www.scripps.edu/news/press/2014/20140227oldstonerosen.html)

------
azazqadir
"The infection takes three–five days to incubate in people before they fall
ill, and another three–five days before, in 80 per cent of the cases, the
victims die."

Takes at least 6 days for the infected to die. That's a really deadly disease.
Even Ebola was not that fast. The WHO website mentioned that it takes 21 days
for Ebola patient to show just the symptoms, which could mean it would still
take few more days for the patient to die.

~~~
czechdeveloper
Doesn't that make Ebola more deadly? 21 days walking around, spreading it.

~~~
cm2187
My understanding is that Ebola is not very contagious. You need physical
contact for the disease to spread. Which is why there was some many victims
among nurses and doctors. But also why it is unlikely you will be contaminated
if you sit 5 hours in a plane next to someone carrying the disease.

~~~
hanspeter
And the interesting thing about Ebola is that while it's not very contagious
it is extremely infectious. Which means that you need contact with just a few
virus particles to be infected.

~~~
cm2187
And then it's game over, low survival rate. Which makes it scary but not very
dangerous.

~~~
nonbel
I would bet the deadliness of Ebola has been overstated (at least by a little,
probably by a lot). Like any infection, many people who get it are probably
asymptomatic, and until recently the vast majority of people tested for it
were most definitely symptomatic.
[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/15/ebola-study-
fin...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/15/ebola-study-finds-women-
guinea-appear-immune-virus)

------
febeling
many people are convinced today that the (smallpox and other) epidemics
introduced to north america by european settlers were real. allegedly 100m
native american people inhabited north america before and it is assumed that
90% fell victim to these epidemics. that would make it a greater catastrophe,
measured by number of casualties, if i'm not mistaken?

~~~
epimetheus
< many people are convinced today that the (smallpox and other) epidemics
introduced to north america by european settlers were real.

Out of curiosity, why do you word it this way? I'm curious because I have a
coworker that thinks the smallpox story is some evil liberal conspiracy of
some sort, and never happened. Yet I see only evidence for, not against.

~~~
maxerickson
Mass death from disease clearly happened. I think there is some room to
question how much of it was intentional. Clearly some of it was intentional,
but if diseases unthinkingly carried over on the first voyages are responsible
for a large number of the deaths, we should take note of that.

------
wobbleblob
Compared to the Permian-Triassic extinction event, the black death barely
qualifies as a mishap, let alone the greatest catastrophe ever !

~~~
azazqadir
For humans, it was the greatest catastrophe. Remember Permian-Triassic period
didn't just affected one species and there were no humans during that period.
You could say our ancestors were affected though.

~~~
arethuza
There is the Toba catastrophe theory - basically that the huge eruption of
Toba caused a reduction of the number of breeding pairs of humans down to a
few thousand:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory)

~~~
danieltillett
Hasn't the Toba theory been discredited?

~~~
spacehome
Perhaps the volcano wasn't the cause, but IIRC there's reason to think that
humans display less genetic diversity than might be expected, pointing towards
a bottleneck somewhere in the past.

~~~
danieltillett
Humans are very unusual from a genetic perspective that makes analysis of us
difficult. Firstly, the population has expand hugely in a very short time so
there are all sorts of founder effects. Secondly, the selection presure
completely changed a few thousand years ago with the transition from hunter-
gather to farming. These two factors make it really hard to use the normal
genetic tools and concepts to study human evolution and draw accurate
conclusions.

------
exit
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Years_of_Rice_and_Salt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Years_of_Rice_and_Salt)

 _> The novel explores how subsequent world history might have been different
if the Black Death plague had killed 99% of Europe's population, instead of a
third._

it's an interesting effort to imagine human civilisation guided primarily by
buddhism and islam, without christianity ever ascending.

------
Maultasche
I'll also point out that like with aftershocks with earthquakes, there were
multiple smaller waves of plagues after this initial event, breaking out in
various regions over subsequent centuries.

It seemed to have died down after around 1700, but there were regular plague
outbreaks up to that point. None were as widespread or as devastating as the
initial outbreak, although that was of small comfort to those thousands that
did die in later outbreaks.

------
foobar2020
While we are on this topic I would like to recommend to all who have not seen
it yet "The Seventh Seal", Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece on dealing with death
and God's silence when we face it. Action is set in medieval Sweden, during
the time of the Black Death plague.

The opening scene:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4yXBIigZbg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4yXBIigZbg)

------
nonbel
Has anyone read this book that proposes the "black death" was due to
meteor/comet strikes? I have been interested in doing so but never got around
to it.

[http://www.amazon.com/Light-Black-Death-Mike-
Baillie/dp/0752...](http://www.amazon.com/Light-Black-Death-Mike-
Baillie/dp/0752435981/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198070365&sr=8-1)

~~~
BorisVSchmid
Glanced at the abstract, and the amazon reviews. The medieval medical guilds
were well aware of the clinical symptoms of the Black Death, so I wonder how
Mike Baillie connects the characteristic buboes of the plague with meteor
strikes?

I enjoyed reading this paper:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2632865/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2632865/)

The paper highlights several aspects of plague that were different between the
second and third plague pandemic, and which caused a scientific movement that
searched for alternative explanations for the Black Death - that is, until the
Yersinia pestis bacterium got sequenced from multiple Black Death mass graves.

~~~
nonbel
I'm not familiar with the arguments in the book, but in general it could be
both. The impacts could disrupt society (eg via crop failure) which leads to a
breakdown of sanitary practices and poverty which leads to spread of disease.

------
CapitalistCartr
Many historians now think there were about 100 million people living in the
Americas when Columbus arrived and disease reduced this to 2 million over the
course of 150 years. All the atrocities of the Spanish combined couldn't come
close to the ravages of disease from a populace that lived in their own filth.

------
DiffEq
There is a new book coming out about this focused on the Black Death in
Ireland: [http://irishhistorypodcast.ie/the-black-
death/](http://irishhistorypodcast.ie/the-black-death/)

------
Synaesthesia
Another terrible catastrophe was the colonisation of India, resulting
ultimately in it's economic destruction, massive famines of millions of people
etc. In fact a great catastrophe the western colonisation of the rest of the
world starting from about 1497 in general. It was extraordinarily brutal
throughout the world. For an excellent overview of this history of European
colonisation of the world see Noam Chomsky's book "Year 501, The Conquest
Continues". It's available online.

But the black death was obviously a major global catastrophe. In fact Europe
was for centuries a most brutal place with disease, warfare, and oppression.

~~~
knz
> In fact Europe was for centuries a most brutal place with disease, warfare,
> and oppression.

I'm not sure that only applies to Europe...

~~~
Synaesthesia
Of course not. Comparatively it was actually pretty bad. Worse than I thought
it was, the gap between the first world and the third world was also much
smaller in the past.

------
SixSigma
Or, as some might say, the best thing that ever happened to European society.

Paper became cheap because of a cotton glut and labour became expensive
leading to egalitarian lifestyles.

~~~
throwaway049
The aristocracy were against egalitarian lifestyles immediately following the
plague. A maximum wage system was established in England [0]

[0] [http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-09-05/how-the-
bla...](http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-09-05/how-the-black-death-
spawned-the-minimum-wage)

------
arca_vorago
One thing to remember is that a tremendous amount of wealth was passed to the
survivors, and it was actually a boon for the recovering population.

------
bb101
Dubious placement of Frankfurt on the included map.

~~~
Maultasche
In Germany, it's common to have cities in different parts of Germany with the
same name. In such cases, one usually puts a nearby geographic feature
(usually a river) or region next to the name of the city.

In this particular case, it's Frankfurt (Main) vs Frankfurt (Oder).

I'm a little puzzled as to the inclusion of Frankfurt (Oder) on the map. It
was a city of decent size in the Middle Ages, but nowhere near the importance
of any of the other cities displayed on the map.

~~~
BorisVSchmid
It basically comes down to data availability, and some historian digging
through the available archives.

For example, Givry is a tiny place somewhere in France, but for which by
happenstance the parish registers at the time of the Black Death survived.
They record the daily number of deaths, which end abruptly when presumably the
priest died after recording ~620 deaths since the beginning of the epidemic in
that town. The town's population is estimated at around 1170 people, based on
the death rate in the earlier months, leading to a lower end estimate of 53%
mortality (if the death of the priest was also the end of the epidemic).

    
    
        (from page 306 of http://www.persee.fr/doc/bec_0373-6237_1939_num_100_1_449196)
    
        [0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 3 2 0 0] ;; jul. . approximate start of epidemic somewhere during jul.
        [0 4 4 1 0 2 1 7 5 3 1 1 4 5 3 3 4 1 5 2 2 4 3 6 2 2 2 6 3 8 4 6 10] ;; aug.
        [6 9 8 8 4 6 15 3 11 24 7 10 15 10 14 11 17 8 6 3 17 6 11 16 7 16 12 5 10 7] ;; sept
        [7 6 7 7 8 7 6 6 9 4 7 9 3 14 5 5 4 8 6 7 3 2 5 4 4 2 3 1 3 0 6] ;; oct
        [3 4 3 4 0 2 1 0 4 3 2 1 0 0 5 0 0 0 3] ;; nov, records end with the dead of the priest, worst of the epidemic is over.

------
kempe
It was not a big deal in Sweden. The government was acting fast to quarantine
the areas. Mostly only children bellow 14 died. A few years later however most
families had new children. All in all it was not a big deal for that point in
time. Remember that back in those days most people had more children per
person and death was a larger part of life than now.

~~~
frozenport
This isn't true:

>>In the middle of the 14th century, Sweden was struck by the Black Death.[28]
The population of Sweden and most of Europe was seriously decimated. And the
population (at same territory) as existed by 1348 did not reach the same
numbers again until the beginning of the 19th century. One third of the
population died during 1349–1351.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden)
[2]
[http://staff.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/~cwalton/walton/SOLPics/...](http://staff.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/~cwalton/walton/SOLPics/bdmaptest.jpg)

~~~
kempe
You are wrong. Read Olle Larsson and Andreas Marklunds book Svensk Historia.
[http://www.bokus.com/bok/9789175452531/svensk-
historia/](http://www.bokus.com/bok/9789175452531/svensk-historia/)

~~~
BorisVSchmid
Authors can be wrong in interpreting the available (or lack of available)
information. According to Ole Benedictow, there is little or no surviving
records of plague in Sweden, but I would be curious to know why Larsson and
Marklunds interpret that as that there was little plague there?

Ole Benedictow's chapter on Sweden (mainly discussing the lack of evidence,
except for church donations)
[https://books.google.no/books?id=ZtjwPOB7aMkC&pg=PA170&dq=%2...](https://books.google.no/books?id=ZtjwPOB7aMkC&pg=PA170&dq=%22On+the+eve+of+the+Black+Death,+Sweden%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi__4OH65jMAhXjO5oKHYqNBOUQ6AEILzAA#v=onepage&q=%22On%20the%20eve%20of%20the%20Black%20Death%2C%20Sweden%22&f=false)

Stockholm in 1710-1711 had no problem in being rather brutally infected, with
at its peak 1500 burials per week.

The Last plague in the Baltic Region from Frandsen:
[https://books.google.no/books?id=F3bNWrVRMb8C&pg=PA65&dq=%22...](https://books.google.no/books?id=F3bNWrVRMb8C&pg=PA65&dq=%22The+Plague+in+Finland+And+Sweden%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiyvJHF65jMAhUKIJoKHd94A_UQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22The%20Plague%20in%20Finland%20And%20Sweden%22&f=false)

~~~
kempe
True. Also I'm not saying people didnt die. But from what I've read, it was
not such a huge deal as it has been painted out to be in Sweden. Remember,
health care back in those days meant people died from all sorts of things.
Perhaps there is a lack of information or it simply was not a big deal.
Different people are also more or less sensitive to different bacteria and
viruses.

------
Ma8ee
Isn't that why religions have been so successful. They are not only a
psychological coping mechanisms, but actually increase the success (or
fitness, if you like) of the societies they dominate. So this (don't leave an
infected area) is an excellent meme in Dawkins' original sense.

~~~
Razengan
Religion (like philosophy and superstition) is probably just the precursor to
Science; a sapient species trying to make sense of their world and
consciousness, plugging the holes in their understanding with the means
currently at their disposal.

Unless they're born with complete and accurate knowledge about everything in
the universe, I think all intelligent life out there is going to have a
"religion" at some point in their civilization.

~~~
krzrak
> Religion (and philosophy and superstition) is probably just the precursor to
> science

This is first thing. The other is precursor of law and social norms. It is
hard to explain to people, that they shouldn't steal, because "it's wrong" and
it hurts society. It's easier, when you tell them they will burn in hell for
that.

~~~
1stop
It's actually easier (and more intuitive) to explain it in terms of
reciprocity. We have an innate understanding of it.

~~~
tremon
Our innate understanding of reciprocity is severely limited by our social
identity though; it's much easier to empathize with in-group members than with
an out-group member. To reciprocate with an out-group member requires
considerable training.

So I think the GP is correct, once a society encompasses multiple distinct
tribes, it is easier to "guide" people with (threats of) in-group punishment
than with out-group empathy.

~~~
1stop
Not true at all. An out group hits me, innately I want to hit back. An out
group shows me empathy innately I show it back. You would have to learn
otherwise.

The in-group out-group is some higher part of the brain that rationalised our
values.

------
golemotron
> Of note is how smallpox was used as a weapon: "You will do well to try to
> inoculate the Indians, by means of blankets, as well as to try every other
> method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race." — Jeffery Amherst

Someone should find those Europeans and punish them. Or at the very least make
their descendants feel guilty forever.

~~~
agentgt
From what I remember reading up on it a while ago (and I'm probably wrong) a
large part of the death was not intentional and was probably inevitable (like
wise even for the black plague but a lesser degree.. it could have been
avoided).

Compare this to the Nazis or various other genocides which were highly
avoidable and huge faults of humanity.

~~~
golemotron
It doesn't matter Europeans destroyed indigenous cultures in America through
the spread of disease. We should make sure that every child in the US knows
this. We should also make sure that we remind people of it whenever people
mention other tragedies like the Black Death. We're very bad people. We need
to remember.

~~~
agentgt
It is and was called imperialism and almost every nation and civilization has
done it (not that it excuses it).

Even optimistic Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek future it continues on and is a
topic (the prime directive).

What do you think happened to the neanderthals?

Survival instincts are just inherently nasty but we as humans should rise
above these tendencies since we have the cognitive ability to do so.

I mean for god sake look how we treat and what we do to the animals that we
eat. A hundred years from now it might be seen as a serious moral slip on our
part. We might all be very bad people.

~~~
evook
The neanderthal genocid theory is a bit outdated. Actually they died because
of an erruption below the phlegraean fields. Every human born in an area where
neanderthals used to live is a far descendant of ybrids. Until today our dna
is made of up to two percent of their dna. The mutations resulting in a low
melanin levels and blue eyes are thought to be most likely inherited by
neanderthals.

~~~
tremon
A recent YC thread had an alternative explanation: the male offspring of S/N
interbreeding may have been sterile. The 2% of DNA you mention is all
inherited through the female line.

