Talk:Plague of Athens

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 5 September 2019 and 15 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Justinian Sappadilli. Peer reviewers: Mandafur.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 06:43, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Clarify, please

 * It is believed that after 2,400 years the disease has probably evolved, but the plague has been attributed to a number of known diseases. 

Anon contribution moved here -- are you saying that bubonic plague and its interaction with humans has evolved over 2,400 years? Certainly possible. And then are you saying that a bubonic plague has been blamed for other outbreaks of known diseases? Please clarify and re-enter your edit. Thank you. WBardwin 02:14, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Clean up tag
Please list below concerns or issues which led to the placement of the clean up tag. Thank you. WBardwin 02:05, 9 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I've made a few recent clean ups -- as have other editors since January. Does anyone have specific concerns at this point?  Any direction the article needs to go?  Let's plan on removing the tag soon.  Discussion welcome.  WBardwin 06:27, 23 April 2006 (UTC)


 * No comments received. Removing tag.  WBardwin 20:29, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Cause of the Plague of Athens
The cause appears to have been typhoid fever.

First paragraph of article:

'''Athens, Greece, January 23, 2006 – Scientists have for many years debated the cause of the Plague of Athens. Analysis carried out by Manolis Papagrigorakis and colleagues using DNA collected from teeth from an ancient Greek burial pit points to typhoid fever as the disease responsible for this devastating epidemic. The study appears on the online version of The International Journal of Infectious Diseases (IJID) published by Elsevier on behalf of the International Society for Infectious Diseases.'''

69.6.162.160 02:51, 24 January 2006 (UTC)Brian Pearson

Here is another example of where Wikipedia trumps more 'official' resources. I am going off of the Encyclopedia Britannica 2006 for this project, and supplementing with Wikipedia where appropriate, and it is great to find more current information here. Joey 02:15, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Differential Diagnosis
I completed a fairly thorough examination of this topic as a medical student. I did not conclude that Pericles suffered from the same disease as the Plague of Athens as he seemed to have a very different set of symtoms to the classic disease. My conclusion was that the Plague was most similar to a haemorrhagic fever, like ebola or Marburg virus, as part of this study I also went through most other suggested diagnoses and explained why I thought they were wrong. It is worth remembering we have only one source for a description of the symptoms.
 * The clinical symptoms do look like a hemorrhagic fever, but the epidemiology does not. Those disease, especially the vicious African fevers, are spread through blood contact, correct? I am constantly irritated by the Associated Press writing articles about Ebola outbreaks in particular, and referring to Ebola as "highly contagious" Scary does not equal highly contagious. --Dan (talk) 17:06, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Differential
Any chance I could have a read of that paper, I'm quite interested in the prevelance of haemorrhagic fevers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.239.6.72 (talk) 12:05, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Why not smallpox?
I should go read the 1999 papers, but to me, the symptoms don't fit typhoid very well. You can see bronchitis/pneumonia with typhoid (personal experience; I've had typhoid with severe bronchitis), so that's distinct possibility. But the list of symptoms from Thucydides sure sounds like smallpox - the eye and oral symptoms, the skin eruptions. As for something like Ebola, the spread of the disease doesn't sound like one of that group of diseases. It feels more like an air or water borne disease, and the Ebola type bugs aren't. Snow (talk) 14:02, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

War outcomes
The hastily written section on the plague's effect on the outcome of the war as well as the reference to the eventual Macedon conquest is pretty lame. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.144.143.69 (talk) 16:33, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Questionable claim in "Typhoid fever" section
Bottom paragraph in section begins: "As Typhoid is most commonly transmitted through poor hygiene habits and public sanitation conditions, it is an unlikely cause of a widespread plague, emerging in Africa and moving into the Greek city states, as reported by Thucydides." (Emphasis mine.)

Much other information in this article indicates that typhoid would be more likely rather than unlikely under those transmission conditions, at least in overcrowded, war-torn Athens, but the sentence cites no authority one can check so, unless someone objects I suggest we draw the conclusion consistent with the evidence and logic, rather than this one, or delete it as original research, or find a reliable source. Meanwhile I will change "As Typhoid" to "As typhoid" since the disease name is not a proper name. —Blanchette (talk) 07:00, 4 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Added "" tag as Athens was certainly subject to unsanitary conditions at this time and the African origin issue is not explained as to relevance. —Blanchette (talk) 22:03, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Not really copied
I thought I would clarify, given the recent edit history of this article, that this article is not copied from the New World Encyclopedia page that was referenced. In fact, the New World Encyclopedia entry is a revised version of this article and it says so at the bottom of the page. It states, "New World Encyclopedia editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. --Katolophyromai (talk) 14:14, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

New Additions
Changing “It is believed to have entered Athens through Piraeus, the city's port and sole source of food and supplies.” in the first paragraph to “The Plague killed about 75,000 to 100,000 people and is believed to have entered Athens through Piraeus, the city's port and sole source of food and supplies.” Changing “ He writes of a disease coming from Ethiopia and passing through Egypt and Libya into the Greek world” to “He writes of a disease originating in Ethiopia and spreading throughout the Mediterranean and eventually into the Greek World” Add Section “Symptoms”, “According to Thucydides, these are the symptoms of the Plague that hit Athens Fevers Redness and inflammation in the eyes Sore Throats leading to bleeding and bad breath Sneezing and loss of voice Coughing Vomiting Pustules and ulcers on the body Extreme thirst Insomnia Diarrhea

Thucydides also describes how the illness began in the head and worked its way throughout the entirety of the body." — Preceding unsigned comment added by FasteningLlama9 (talk • contribs) 21:12, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Typhus, typhoid
This article seems to get confused between typhus and typhoid fever. PatGallacher (talk) 22:37, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

questions., and preventions?
Theres no information on how you prevent it, Its like they didnt even try to research or make face coverings such as masks and this is really confusing. They didnt even try back then. Hyper1 5 (talk) 19:35, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

This article needs re-written
This article is a mess. So much opinion added and so many sources not cited.

“Very nearly unbeatable” sounds very specific and scholarly doesn’t it? My goodness.

“According to Thucydides, not until 415 BC had Athens recovered sufficiently to mount a major offensive, the disastrous …” what is up with this backward and negative grammar? “Athens recovered sufficiently by 415BC to mount a major offensive.” Isn’t that much easier to understand?

This article needs to be tagged for clean up. 96.27.57.243 (talk) 08:15, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Plagues and People
— Assignment last updated by Oneton III (talk) 03:18, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Plagues and People
— Assignment last updated by Maxwellmcgowan (talk) 20:37, 26 October 2023 (UTC)