Sources: Encyclopedia of the Black Death

The Black Death

Towards the middle of .the fourteenth century some Italian merchants who were occupied in trading with China by the overland route were besieged by the Tartars in a small town on the river Don. They were, however, driven out of this town, and many of them, together with their merchandise from China, found refuge in the fortified post of Caff a, in the Crimea. Later they were again besieged in t...

What caused the Black Death?

For the whole of the 20th century it was believed that the Black Death and all the plagues of Europe (1347-1670) were epidemics of bubonic plague. This review presents evidence that this view is incorrect and that the disease was a viral haemorrhagic fever, characterised by a long incubation period of 32 days, which allowed it to be spread widely even with the limited transport of the Middle Ag...

AIDS and the Black Death.

Sir, We appreciate Dr Harvey’s interest in our paper, and wholeheartedly agree that coeliac disease is an important cause of iron-deficiency anaemia; this diagnosis will have been considered and pursued where appropriate in the patients in our study. However, the purpose of our study was not to expound every presumed cause of iron-deficiency anaemia in our large series of patients. Such a repor...

[The black death of 1347-1350].

The Black Death: end of a paradigm.

HIV/AIDS and the threat of biological warfare have refueled interest in the Black Death among professional historians, biologists, and the public, not only for assessing the toxic effects of the bacillus but for understanding the psychological and longer-term cultural consequences of mass death. This article makes two arguments. Against the assumptions of historians and scientists for over a ce...