Talk:Theories of the Black Death

Doesn't Y. Pestis also cause septecaemic plague and pneumonic plague also? I've heard those could be responsible for the spaid spread, and that the 'tokens' were subdermal haemorrhage from the septecemic form...

Bramanti Article
This paper suggests that two previously unknown biovars of Y. Pestis were isolated from Black Death victims. The article has to be updated, pending the findings of this paper. I do not have access to the entire paper, so I cannot be of much help. 68.197.174.59 (talk) 14:33, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

"2 miles/day"?
"An Ebola-like virus? ... topping at 2 miles/day, as "

Would that be 2 Norwegian miles/day (20 kilometers/day)?

Grimstad 5 (talk) 15:32, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Needs updating
With info from Science (March 6, 2009) or Journal of Archaeological Science which discusses using rapid diagnostic test (RDT) that reveals the presence of a protein specific to Y. pestis. The work of Raffaella Bianucci at Turin University. I don't have access to either work. Rmhermen (talk) 01:53, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Too much emphasis on anti-Yersinia theories
As it stands, this article impresses me as notably imbalanced, too much like the product of some kind of conspiracy theorist. The fact remains, when everything is said and done, that the vast majority of the students of the Black Death agree that the causative agent was Yersinia pestis. It seems to me that when most of the experts on a subject are of one mind, and only a minority disagree, the corresponding Wikipedia article should reflect this by going into the majority hypothesis at greater length than into the minority hypothesis(es).

Perhaps this article should be renamed "Alternate Theories of the Black Death".

Floozybackloves (talk) 22:56, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, the problem is that the alternate theories simply outnumber the prevailing one, so to summarize them one necessarily has to spend more time talking about minority theories. --Saforrest (talk) 05:51, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I thought the barbarians brought it from Asia?
I heard that Marmots (Giant rodents from Mongolia) were the cause of the plague and that Huns and Mongols brought it to Europe during the Dark and Middle Ages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sumirp (talk • contribs) 16:37, 18 July 2010 (UTC)


 * That is a version of the Yersinia theory... that the Yersinia-infected fleas originated in a rodent population on the steppe.


 * As well the conventional story of the Black Death is that Genoese traders who were fleeing a Tatar attack on one of their cities on the Black Sea ended up getting infected by the Tatars and brought the plague back to Europe with them.  The Tatars were basically Mongols so this must be what you're referring to.


 * But this explanation--the disease living among rodents and being spread to Europe by the Tatars/Genoese--depends on the pathogen being Yersinia, which has not yet been conclusively proven.


 * And incidentally, marmots are hardly 'giant rodents', unless your standard is a mouse. We're talking maybe the size of a groundhog or slightly bigger. --Saforrest (talk) 22:16, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

2010 confirmation of Y. pestis as the cause of the Black Death
The 2010 multinational study by Haensch et al evidently renders any arguments about alternative causes redundant. I think these theories still need to be referred to, but given the conclusive nature of the new study I think the current extended exposition can be greatly condensed. They are naturally of historical interest, but are clearly no longer relevant execept in that specific context. I'd appreciate any comments on this -- I'll wait a few weeks and if no-one has any major objections I'll proceed with trying to edit that material down to a more appropriate size.

Dunks (talk) 02:42, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Sources needed for Beak doctor costume article
A vigorous discussion is currently under way at Talk:Beak doctor costume about the historical use of the phrase 'beak doctor', and whether said costume was worn before the seventeenth century. I've not been able to find any reliable sources which show that the costume was worn before 1619, and therefore thought I'd ask here if anyone knew of any. Any other contributions, either to the discussion or the article, would be welcome.--Doug Coldwell talk 10:59, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

The explanation of McCormick's theory makes no sense
McCormick's article might be clearer, and the summary garbled, but at least from here the article and the journal page are dead links. At present, the article states that:

"The plague(s) had killed a large portion of the human host population of Europe and dwindling cities meant that more people were isolated, and so geography and demography did not allow rats to have as much contact with Europeans. Greatly curtailed communication and transportation systems due to the drastic decline in human population also hindered the replenishment of devastated rat colonies."

The problem is that there were growing populations, and especially growing cities, when the European plague epidemics died out in the 17th though 19th centuries, so as written it's claiming a cause that wasn't there, and these were much larger than in the initial epidemics of the 6th and 14th centuries. Ananiujitha (talk) 17:05, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Comment: I feel 2 km a day re travel is somewhat conservative and people on horseback etc. would have covered more ground. Re the rats: I note a major change in construction re dove-cotes at this time, with older dove-cotes being restructured to deal with a climbing rodent. Sorry: I don't know how to edit. Just a suggestion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Numanonja (talk • contribs) 00:57, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

The article states that only 0.3% of those infected with the pneumonic form of the plague in the Manchuria epidemic of 1911 died. However the mortality rate of this form is close to 100% and accounts of the 1911 outbreak confirm this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.128.205.24 (talk) 08:56, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Mortality rate for bubonic form
These two sentences appear directly contradictory. Is the mortality rate 30-75% TOTAL, or 4 out of five within 8 days, which would be 80% within that shorter timeframe?

"The bubonic plague was the most commonly seen form during the Black Death, with a mortality rate of thirty to seventy-five percent and symptoms including fever of 38–41 °C (101–105 °F), headaches, painful aching joints, nausea and vomiting, and a general feeling of malaise. Of those who contracted the bubonic plague, four out of five died within eight days." Thomas Roche (talk) 23:01, 6 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Aside from the contradictory mortality rates, this whole paragraph is problematic. It is talking about the Black Death but describes the symptoms as "fever of 38–41 °C (101–105 °F), headaches, painful aching joints, nausea and vomiting, and a general feeling of malaise". Those symptoms are what we know of the plague now, not the symptoms of the Black Death in the 14th century. It also includes this sentence: "Pneumonic plague was the second most commonly seen form during the Black Death" with no cited source. I am inclined to remove these problematic sentences or even the whole paragraph altogether. Quidquidlatetadparebit (talk) 08:46, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Long-overdue update to reflect scientific consensus
It seems like a few users tried to flag the false balance afforded to anti-Yersinia theories on this page around 2010 (around when it seems that the molecular/DNA evidence that seems to have settled the scientific debate started coming in) but that much of the language surrounding these theories remained even as the consensus has solidified. Most notable is the language in the intro, added in 2014, that this evidence "renewed focus on plague as the leading hypothesis, but has not yet led to a final resolution of all these questions". This lends far too much credibility to the alternates, which at this point should probably be treated as historical. Will update accordingly. Nikko2013 (talk) 04:34, 3 April 2022 (UTC)