Episode #104- What Caused the Black Death? (Part III)

In the 1890’s a team of physicians and scientists discovered the cause of bubonic plague, a bacteria they named Yersinia Pestis. It was assumed for most of the 20th century that Yersinia Pestis also caused the infamous Black Death of the 14th century. But starting in the 1980’s a number of experts started to question this assumption. Does this theory still stand up to scrutiny? Tune in and find out how ebola, basilisk potions, and the top speed of a rat all play a roll in the story. 

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Works Cited

Armstrong, Dorsey. The Black Death: The World’s Most Devastating Plague. Narrated by Armstrong, audiobook, The Great Courses, 2016. Audible.comhttps://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/the-black-death-the-worlds-most-devastating-plague.html

“’Ring Around the Rosy,’ Plagued by Misunderstanding.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 22 Apr. 2001, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/2001/04/22/ring-around-the-rosy-plagued-by-misunderstanding/6284c3d3-82a4-4b8c-bb45-0a96721ba750/.

Benedictow, Ole L. The Black Death 1346-1353: the Complete History. Boydell, 2008.

Cohn, Jr. Samuel K. “The Black Death: End of a Paradigm.” The American Historical Review, vol. 107, no. 3, 2002, pp. 703–738., doi:10.1086/532493.

Derbes, V. J. “De Mussis and the Great Plague of 1348. A Forgotten Episode of Bacteriological Warfare.” JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 196, no. 1, 1966, pp. 59–62., doi:10.1001/jama.196.1.59.

  

Duncan, C J. “What Caused the Black Death?” Postgraduate Medical Journal, vol. 81, no. 955, 2005, pp. 315–320., doi:10.1136/pgmj.2004.024075.

Herlihy, David, and Samuel Kline. Cohn. The Black Death and the Transformation of the West. Harvard University Press, 2001.

Hoyle, Fred, and Chandra Wickramasinghe. Diseases from Space. Sphere, 1981.

Kelly, John. The Great Mortality: an Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time. HarperCollins, 2001.

Opie, Iona, and Peter Opie. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes. Oxford University Press, 1992.

Twigg, Graham. The Black Death: a Biological Reappraisal. Schocken Books, 1985.

Wheelis, Mark. “Biological Warfare at the 1346 Siege of Caffa.” Emerging Infectious Diseases, vol. 8, no. 9, 2002, pp. 971–975., doi:10.3201/eid0809.010536.

Ziegler, Philip. The Black Death. Faber & Faber, 2013.