It didn’t disappear btw. The black death wasn’t 1 round of disease that killed everyone. There were waves of it and the big on in Europe wasn’t the first or last deadly outbreak. It is still around but thanks to antibiotics it is mostly a non issue.
How did it only kill 1/3, did many people survive it?
Some people didn’t get it and some had the right genes to fight off the disease. Those genes have now been linked to autoimmune diseases https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/genes-protective-during-the-black-death-may-now-be-increasing-autoimmune-disorders-202212012859
In addition to what the other commenter said, there’s some luck of the draw, too. There were three forms of it, having to do with how you were infected. Bubonic was one, associated with sores and boils on the skin, caused by flea bites. Pnumonic was a lung infection, which could spread directly via droplets. And septemic was the blood infection version, usually happening as one of the others progressed.
Bubonic only killed about 40-60% of those who showed symptoms, while pnumonic and septemic killed 90-100% of those who showed symptoms.
So to get infected at all, you needed either to be bitten by an infected flea, share air with someone who has pnumonic, or share fluids with someone that has bubonic (specifically the pus from the sores) or septemic (the blood, though maybe other fluids too).
Some managed to avoid these entirely. Others could have had lower exposures to the point where they didn’t develop symptoms. If someone gets infected but the infection doesn’t get established enough to become stable, they often don’t get treated any differently from people who weren’t infected at all. Those death rates only apply to those that they knew had it (though sometimes death rates are given per population rather than infected, and those tended to vary wildly in infected areas, from like 50% to 80%).
With viruses, at least, asymptomatic infection seems to be far more common than we would have thought. Both ebola and covid antibody studies showed that the antibodies were found in many who never got sick, implying they were exposed but their immune system beat it before symptoms showed up.
Bacteria isn’t necessarily the same, but it’s possible that something like this is a factor and those might have even developed some immunity. Plus, natural selection would select for people who are just less susceptible to it while it’s out there killing off a significant part of the population.
Right, we still regularly have cases.
Just completely ignores history, changes in human hygiene, and developments in medicine that weren’t vaccines (“let’s just ignore antiserums, sulphonamides, and streptomycin!”).
When I was stationed in Colorado, we were doing our exercise in an open field of grass, rolling around, doing push-ups and sit-ups etc, when someone ran up and told the person running the formation that we needed to move because plague had been discovered in the prairie dog droppings all over the base, just like the ones we were apparently rolling around in
Fun times
If I know anything from my time in the Army, everyone just went over to the next hill and continued rolling around in the contaminated uniform.
Pretty much
It did not disappear. It’s still posting on social media.
Kind of rude to talk about Kanye like that
The word “quarantine” originates from a Venetian policy that every single ship had to wait outside of port for 40 days to ensure nobody had the plague. I’m sure the antivax people would have no problem with such measures?
What would they do if everyone on a given boat just straight up died from the plague?
Wait another 40 days and collect the free loot.
Them’s the breaks… Sea fairing was a dangerous occupation.
I guess eventually some enterprising individuals would attempt to salvage the boat and contents…
Yeah but what has it done for you lately
#prodeath
So sick of seeing confidently incorrect people opining, using historical examples, when they have never before cracked open a history book and have no idea of the context.
So sick of seeing confidently incorrect people opining, using historical examples, when they have never before cracked open a history book and have no idea of the context.
This has always been the case.
The issue is Twitter boosts them over less engaging experts. The new problem is the medium. Twitter is not an fair forum, and these dumb takes trend deliberately.
Legitimately, what else would they use? Hardly anyone uses Mastodon - I don’t for sure, but from what I hear, the devs continually ignore the needs that people keep asking about. Which is why so many turned to Bluesky - it works.
To discuss the Threadiverse that I am much more familiar with, literally 100% of the people that I’ve told about “Lemmy” have outright chided me for having told them about it. (1) If you Google’d that term (not DuckDuckGo, I’m talking mainstream normies here) a year ago, it would take you to lemmy.ml; (2) that instance by default does not show All, but rather Local; (3) lemmy.ml - along with lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net - routinely calls for the murder of everyone participating in a capitalist, Western society (Edit: not just billionaires, or even millionaires, but anyone who participates). And showing Local rather than All does not dilute that flood as much as you see your view of the Threadiverse content from lemmy.world. (4) no major Lemmy instances defederate from lemmy.ml (quokk.au did iirc, before it switched all the way over to PieFed).
There are some MAJOR structural issues with the Fediverse that need to be solved first, before mainstream normies - who remember are primarily centrist (aka liberal to even right-wing by the standards here) - will feel comfortable here. Not celebrating and calling for their literal irl murder might be a start. (Note that while YOU might have such communities and user accounts blocked, a guest account, especially browsing lemmy.ml, cannot and would not know how to deal with such - e.g. a new account on most instances could respond to comments in [email protected] while browsing All and have no idea what they are walking into… then noping out and worst of all, telling everyone that will listen how extremist we are here)
We are a Nazi bar here, except instead of Nazis it’s tankies. Also, purity beatings will continue until morale improves. Mainstream people do not feel welcomed here. And most people seem unable to even say so much as they should be? Would you want more “right-wing” people here? (I actually mean centrists, but especially in the USA where so many are located, that is more where they would lean, right?)
People also are moving to blue sky (bsky.app) which is the twitter-like thing made by the guy who made Twitter
Sadly, yeah. Eventually it will enshittify as well, but in the meantime people seem to enjoy it.
The mainstream will use anything closed source before the fediverse
Henry Ford believed the Elders of Zion, and he was a cultural icon in business, which I assume meant he was top tier intelligent at the time.
The black plague is common in Madagascar for example, in villages which can’t be reqxhes without a helicopter and people there have no money for antibiotics. So doctors without borders are doing there best, but it’s still there (among other places). The vaccine for spreading misinformation is education, but sadly people prefer to get their knowledge from tiktok while letting AI do their school work, if they go to school at all.
Your typing of “accessed” went badly enough that I wonder if you also type in another language
Lately my autocorrect is fucking up big time after years of good service.
English isn’t my main language, but that garbled piece of shit word which should have said “accessed” also doesn’t resemble any word in my language.
where it kept coming back periodically for 500 years
I SAID WHAT I SAID Look if you can’t trust someone using #antivax in their post then at least be a decent person and extend some grace with the understanding that we’re all basically just normal people doing the very best we can in this world – at our core we are all good people and a diversity of thoughts is our strength. But also my opinion is more valid than your opinion and no amount of facts can make my opinion wrong because it’s an opinion and that would be wrong. Gotcha suckers.
Where’s the /s
Are you blind?
JD Vance cheering on the Bubonic Plague.
“One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.”
These people would care more if they personally get hurt.
That why a rhetorical tool that personalizes death may work.
Something like “okay, your mother is now dead. And now your wife, and auntie and even your old highschool girlfriend. You watch them all die, bewildered and distraught, but you do nothing until your son dies in front of you, choking on a resporator, pleading in his eyes until the very end.”
“You can stop the rest of your family dying right now right now, right way. you can even save your own life, in a way that will also save other peoples mothers, wifes, and sons. Will you?”
Let me tell you about my mother.
Wrll, you aint gonna win them all, but sokething like the above tends to work well when people talk about how “some people” should die or go somewhere else. Bringing it back from “somebody” to “you and everyone you know” tends to shock that talk out of them.
Oh I’m just referencing blade runner.
Your story really reminds me of the Voight-Kampff test.
Capillary dilation of the so-called blush response? Fluctuation of the pupil. Involuntary dilation of the iris…
Its effectivly an empathy test just like voight-kampff, so I see where you’re coming from.
depending on the person one death could also be a party
Doesn’t have to be one, I’ve made a list
Oh I am partying once Trump keels over. Absolutely no shame admitting that.
Funny thing is the bubonic plague still kills people in the US every year still today, just in small numbers.
The Black Plague was truly a horror, but it DID break the back of Catholicism in Europe, so that’s nice. Every cloud has a silver lining
How so? Didn’t Luther do that a couple hundred years later?
At the time of the plague, the Catholic church dominated every state politically; they were the undisputed masters of Europe.
After the plague, they never recovered the same amount of control again. This was the start of a long decline that continues to this day.
The plague revealed how truly ineffectual and predatory the church was, even to the most ignorant.
Recommend the books The Black Death and The Dancing Plague, I’m over simplifying of course there are many other details.
So what youre saying is it was gods will for the church to decline and it was done via the plague which must have come from God if everything is part of God’s plan, which means God wanted fewer followers and eventually have none?
that continues to this day.
The US disagrees as do some theocratic states like Iran (nit-pick but i said catholic all you want, they all look the same to me).
THE GOOD NEWS The last time I looked, they’re all shrinking in membership.
Also, remember, they have always lied about their predominance, and they always will. Abrahamics have no relationship with the truth, don’t ever listen to them and their claims, believe nothing without solid evidence from another source.
Which black death book? There are many and I’d like to learn.
I’m assuming dancing plague is John Waller?
My memory fails me, here’s what I have found on my bookshelf from the last few years
The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by Kelly
The Dancing Plague: The Strange, True Story of an Extraordinary Illness by Waller
The Black Death 1346-1353: The Complete History by Benedictow
It broke feudalism, too, and kickstarted the renaissance.
It hasn’t disappeared. It’s still exists, it’s just that if you get it modern antibiotics can kill it.
You still have a 5-15% chance of dying with modern antibiotics.
It’s the improvement in sanitary practices that ultimately made it a much lesser issue.
And the virus evolved to be less deadly and people evolved to have better immune responses to it.
The “Spanish Flu” still exists, and is all around us. Endemic to humanity. Meaning the H1N1-subtype of the influenza virus. Which killed 50-100 million people in 1918-1920. (Nowadays it’s called the seasonal flu)
I’d like to find an image of anti-antivaxxers, from around that time. They had some good burns against the silly antivaxxers and I just can’t remember what they were.
Those are two different things. The bubonic plague is a bacterial infection.
Oh yeah, I should’ve said “the disease” but I was already talking about flu epidemics in my head.
Good note, thanks, but for other people, as I understand the difference very well and would never suggest antibiotics as a treatment to virus-borne disease. And the evolution of bacteria is very different from viruses. Hell, we haven’t even decided if viruses are technically living or not. Anyway, good point
And the fact that everyone else left alive had some form of immunity or resistance.
It’s Europe’s fault for being so weak. Better tell me how many Americans have died because of it!
I prefer people who survive the plague 🤷♂️
The Black Death (bubonic plague) that devastated Europe and Asia in the 14th century did not occur on the American continent.
However, a later, separate outbreak of the bubonic plague was introduced to the Americas around 1900, resulting in the following recorded deaths:
United States (1900-1904): The first major outbreak in San Francisco killed at least 119 to 172 people.
United States (1900–2015): A total of 1,036 human plague cases were reported in the U.S. during this period.
United States (1900-1942): Before antibiotics, there were 511 cases, of which 336 were fatal (66% mortality rate).
United States (Recent): In recent decades, an average of seven human plague cases are reported in the U.S. each year. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention | CDC (.gov)
Key Facts on Plague in the Americas: Origin: The plague arrived in the US on rat-infested steamships from Asia, primarily affecting West Coast port cities.
Endemic Status: The disease established itself among wild rodents in the Western US (especially New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Colorado).
Location: While rare, modern plague cases in the Americas occur primarily in the United States and Peru. Smithsonian Magazine
I’ve got to appreciate a serious fact check under my half-assed joke. Thank you, that was genuinely interesting.
