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Originally Posted by MrSparkle001
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I had never heard about this Ebola/Black Death theory before so I'm glad you posted this.
Being a bit of a documentary junkie + science and history nerd, a few years ago I remember watching an interesting program about the Black Death. Scientists were studying a small village somewhere in England (iirc) where there seemed to be a fairly high population of people who were naturally immune to HIV/AIDS. I think this is when they first discovered the mutated CCR5 gene that's HIV/AIDS resistant. Very interesting indeed that they can date its first mutation to 650 years ago, coinciding with the first appearance of the Black Death in Europe.
When you add that to the description of what happened to the organs (and other symptoms) of the victims, plus the information about transmission and quarantine, it really seems possible that it wasn't Bubonic Plague (bacterial) at all that they were dealing with back then, but Ebola (virus).
I wish I could remember if they even mentioned Ebola in that film... Anyway, it's a facinating theory that would force a change in history books if they end up proving it.
http://www.rense.com/general12/bub.htm (just a bit of info about quarantines back in those days, and further support for the article you posted)
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Professor Duncan said people soon learnt that the only effective way of dealing with the Black Death was to put affected families and even entire villages into quarantine for 40 days. "A quarantine period was first instituted in the city states of northern Italy in the late 14th century and this was gradually adopted throughout Europe and maintained for the next 300 years until the plague disappeared," professors Duncan and Scott say in their book Biology of Plagues.
A quarantine would not have been effective if the disease was spread by rat fleas," said Professor Duncan. "Rats don't respect quarantines. This disease was transmitted directly from person to person which suggests an infectious virus."
Bubonic plagues spread in a complex fashion because they rely on the interaction of fleas, rats and people. Yet the pattern of spread of the Black Death was relatively simple and predictable, indicating person-to-person transmission.
"Endemic bubonic plague is essentially a rural disease because it is an infection of rodents," the book says. "The Black Death, in contrast, struck indiscriminately in the countryside and towns."
The symptoms of the Black Death point to a haemorrhagic fever caused by an Ebola-like virus. The fever struck suddenly, it caused aching and bleeding from internal organs, as well as red blotches caused by the effusion of blood under the skin ñ classic symptoms of Ebola-like illnesses.
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People forget sometimes that when it comes to science nothing is written in stone. You never know when evidence will be discovered that turns everything upside-down. Keeping an open mind about things is essential.
The world was flat once, right?
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