Overview

In recent decades, alternatives to the established bubonic-plague theory have been presented as to the microbiologcal identity and mechanism(s) of spread of historical plague epidemics. In this monograph, the six important alternative theories are intensively discussed in the light of the historical sources, the central primary studies and standard works on bubonic plague and the alternative microbiological agents, insofar as they are testable. These seven theories are incompatible and at least six of them must be untenable. In the author's opinion, the arguments against the bubonic-plague theory and for all alternative theories are untenable. This monograph therefore also has been written also as a standard work on bubonic plague, giving a broad and in-depth presentation of the medical, epidemiological and historical evidence and the methodological tenets for identification of historical diseases by comparison with modern medical knowledge.

Full Product Details

Author:   Ole Benedictow
Publisher:   Brill
Imprint:   Brill
Volume:   2
Weight:   1.279kg
ISBN:  

9789004180024

ISBN 10:   9004180028
Pages:   746
Publication Date:   07 January 2011
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Awaiting stock  
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Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables xiii Preface xv PART ONE: THE ISSUE 1. The Issue and the Problems 3 Introduction 3 The Human-Flea Theory of Plague Epidemiology 9 The Revisionists 16 PART TWO: HOW S.K. COHN MAKES PHYSICIANS AND HISTORIANS SQUARE THE CIRCLE 2. The Ethics of Scholarly Work 25 Introduction 25 How Cohn Makes Medical Scientists Square the Circle 26 Hankin 1: Cohn's Attack on Hankin's Observation of Inverse Correlation between Mortality and Population Density 34 Hankin 2: A Brief Study of Cohn's Technique of Argument 38 The Ugly Americans 44 Cohn's Accusations of Racism against J. Ashburton Thompson and L.F. Hirst 46 How Cohn Makes Historians Square the Circle 54 The Attack on Schofi eld (and Benedictow and L. Bradley) 62 PART THREE: BASIC CONDITIONS FOR BUBONIC PLAGUE IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 3. Rats 73 Introduction: How to Study Rats in History 73 The Nature of Rats and the Frame of Reference of the Medieval Mind 78 The Question of the Presence of Rats and the Methodological Fallacy of Inference ex silentio 85 Ars Moriendi Rattorum: Where Have all the Dead Rats Gone? 91 Zoobiological and Zoogeographical Arguments on the Question of Signifi cant Presence of Black Rats in Medieval Europe 98 The Signifi cance of Evolutionary Th eory and Adaptation by Selection 116 Rat Bones: Material Evidence of the Presence of Rats in the Middle Ages 122 Sociology of Rat-Based Plague 142 4. The Spread of Bubonic Plague over Distances 151 Contiguous Spread and Metastatic Spread 151 5. Mortality in India 194 Effects of the Anti-epidemic Eff orts by British Colonial Authorities 194 6. Was Historical Plague a Viral or Bacterial Disease? The Question of Immunity 205 Introduction 205 Re-infection or Immunity? 212 Did Plague Become a Child Disease aft er the Black Death? 218 Plague according to Social Class, Age and Gender 235 A Demographic Case Study: Th e Necrology of the Monastery of San Domenico in Camporegio 245 The Real Problem and its Solution: Marriage Rates and Fertility Rates aft er the Black Death 268 PART FOUR: DEFINING FEATURES Introduction: Concept of Defining Feature 277 7. Defining Feature 1: Latency Periods 279 8. Defining Feature 2: Inverse Correlation between Mortality Rate and Population Density 289 Introduction 289 More Data on the Inverse Correlation in India and Historical Europe 291 Scott and Duncan and the Correlation between Population Density and Mortality 301 Epilogue: Sweating Sickness and the Inverse Correlation 311 9. Defining Feature 3: Buboes as a Normal Clinical Feature in Epidemics 312 General Introduction 312 Contemporary Notions and Observations of Buboes (and Associated Secondary Clinical Manifestations) 322 Scott and Duncan: The Problem of Buboes 334 Cohn: The Problem of Buboes 340 Cohn and Boccaccio: Buboes, Pustules and Spots 359 10. Defining Feature 4: DNA of Yersinia pestis from Plague Graves 381 11. Defining Feature 5: Seasonality of Bubonic Plague 396 Introduction: Bubonic Plague's Association with Moderately Warm Temperatures and Seasons 396 Seasonality of Historical Bubonic-Plague Epidemics with Emphasis on the Transseasonal Form 398 The Seasonality of Plague and Mortality in England 1340-1666 420 Duration of Vacancies in Parish Benefices during the Black Death 436 Temporal Relationship between the Territorial Spread of the Black Death and Increase in Institutions 463 Summary and Conclusion 482 PART FIVE: THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES Introduction: The History and Essence of the Alternative Theories 487 12. The Beginning: Th e Alternative Theories of Shrewsbury and Morris 489 Shrewsbury: the Composite, Low-Intensity Theory 489 Morris: The Primary Pneumonic Theory 491 13. Gunnar Karlsson's Alternative Theory: That Historical Plague was Pure Epidemics of Primary Pneumonic Plague 493 Introduction 493 Karlsson and Benedictow 495 Could Plague Have Come to Iceland from Anywhere? 502 Pure Epidemics of Primary Pneumonic Plague: Fact or Fiction? 511 Primary Pneumonic Plague in Manchuria: A Model for Iceland? 514 The Spontaneous Decline of Epidemics of Primary Pneumonic Plague 518 The Icelandic Climatic Th eory of Primary Pneumonic Plague 528 Mortality Rate of the Purported Plague Epidemics in Iceland 530 Summary: Why There Never Was a Plague Epidemic in Iceland 533 Was the Black Death in Bergen (Norway) 1349 Primary Pneumonic Plague? 536 Summary and Conclusion 550 14. Twigg's Alternative Theory 553 Introduction 553 Th e Alternative Theory of Anthrax 555 Th e Historical Basis: The Use of Obsolete and Peripheral Studies 560 Th e Telluric-Miasmatic Th eory of Anthrax 562 Th e Pace of Spread of Plague 566 Anthrax and the Name Black Death 571 Anthrax's Historical Association with Other Epizootics among Domestic Animals and Plague 574 Th e Black Death's Origin and Spread and the Anthrax Theory 580 Twigg's Demographic Argument 595 Concluding Remarks 608 15. The Alternative Theory of Scott and Duncan 610 Introduction 610 Disparaging Views of Historians and Physicians: Motive and Objective 611 The Material Scholarly Basis of Scott and Duncan's Alternative Theory 615 The Demography of Historical Plague 628 The Reed-Frost Theory of Epidemiology 633 The Filoviridal Theory of Historical Plague: A Study in Academic Fiction 636 The Significance of Autopsies 653 Th e African Confinement 661 Summary and Conclusion 662 16. Cohn's Alternative Theory 664 Epilogue 673 Appendix 1 Black Death Mortality in Siena: The Material Provided by the Necrology of the Monastery of San Domenico in Camporegio and Summarized in Table 5 675 Appendix 2 Th e Accounts of the Icelandic Epidemics of 1402-4 and 1494-5 Given in Icelandic Annals 680 Appendix 3 Th e Extrinsic Incubation Period and the Structure and Composition of the Latency Period 682 Glossary 688 Bibliography 693 Index of Subjects 717 Index of Geographical Names and People 730 Index of Names 740

Reviews

En lineas generales, Benedictow articula el libro en torno a tres ejes principales. Asi, en el primero se encarga de definir las condiciones basicas para el desarrollo de la plaga bubonica en la Europa medieval, en el segundo pormenoriza las caracteristicas definitorias de la epidemia y por ultimo, una vez perfilado el cuadro de que es y que sabemos de la Peste Negra, se lanza a desmontar las teorias alternativas que han ido surgiendo en los ultimos anos, senalando sus defectos de forma y contenido. - Alberto Reche (IEM), Medievalia, 2012, No. 15, 366-368 pp.

Author Information

Ole J. Benedictow, Cand. Philol. in History (1961), University of Oslo, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Oslo. He has published extensively on historical plague epidemics and medieval demography including The Black Death 1346-1353. The Complete History (Boydell&Brewer 2004), The Black Death and Later Plague Epidemics in Norway (in Norwegian, Unipub 2002), and The Medieval Demographic System of the Nordic Countries (Middelalderforlaget, 2nd ed. 1996).

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