Talk:Black Death

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Some Requests

I would have liked to see more written about the different types of bubonic plague, pneumonic and septicemic. Also, there was nothing written about how people dealt with the Afro-Eurasian epidemic, or about their poor cleanliness, and there is only a short reference to miasmas. There is also nothing about plague doctors, which I definitely think should be included. I've also read that Europeans killed black cats because they thought that they were bad luck, but the cats were killing the rats, so after they killed the cats, the rats stayed alive, although I'm not sure how true that is. I've also read that the song "Ring Around the Rosie" as I always called it, or "Ring a Ring O' Rosie" as the Wikipedia article says, was based on the Black Plague, which is in the article about the song, but not mentioned here, although I think it does deserve one. 67.85.219.4 (talk) 14:03, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

bubonic plague, pneumonic plague and septicaemic plague are different types of plague, not different types of bubonic plague. Cats are not good at controlling rats; cats are too small. The mass killing of pets happened, to my knowledge, in the Great Plague of London (in 1666) but that doesn't have anything to do with the Black Death, which was in the mid-14th century, and three hundred years before that wave of the second plague pandemic. There isn't the slightest historical evidence Ring a Ring o' Roses has anything to do with plague, and certainly has absolutely nothing to do with the Black Death. It did not exist before the late 18th century. GPinkerton (talk) 16:17, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree with GPinkerton on these points. I'll also point out that the article has sub-sections on bubonic vs. pneumonic vs. septicaemic plague, all of which include links to articles that talk about them more extensively. I don't think they necessarily need a deeper treatment here. To address two of your other points: 1) Plague doctors. If you're thinking of the archetypal plague doctors with the mask with the beak, those did not show up until a few centuries after the Black Death. 2) Poor cleanliness and miasma. I think there is certainly room to expand on these two points, and the article could be improved by giving them more attention. If you would like to write some text on the subjects and post it an edit request here, go for it! Or if you have some good, easily accessible sources that an editor could use for these specific points, feel free to post them.--Shmarrighan (talk) 06:10, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Shmarrighan, I don't think that I know enough about any of this to actually write about it in the article, I just wanted to share my thoughts. For the Ring a Ring o' Roses, GPinkerton, the Wikipedia article about it states "the rhyme has often been associated with the Great Plague which happened in England in 1665, or with earlier outbreaks of the Black Death in England.", and I have heard the same from various other sources, so I still believe that to be true. Could you cite something that states otherwise? Also, I didn't mean to say that pneumonic and septicemic plague were different kinds of bubonic plague, that was a typo on my part.67.85.219.4 (talk) 22:19, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

If you look back at the Ring a Ring o' Roses article, you may notice that while it discusses the plague explanation, it doesn't actually endorse it. The "Meaning" section starts with "The origins and meanings of the game have long been unknown and subject to speculation. Folklore scholars, however, regard the Great Plague explanation that has been the most common since the mid-20th century as baseless." There is also a short sub-section titled "Counterarguments" that explains the conflict reasonably well. If you're interested in reading more, here is a good discussion of the evidence (or lack thereof).--Shmarrighan (talk) 07:47, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Human flea?

The article says There is evidence that once it came ashore, the Black Death was in large part spread by human fleas – which cause pneumonic plague. But the "human flea" article says that the species originated in South America, and probably became cosmopolitan only "after the 18th century". Presumably a different species of flea commonly fed on humans in Afro-eurasia before the Columbian exchange? --Dan Wylie-Sears 2 (talk) 14:39, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

It was rat fleas. I have corrected. Dudley Miles (talk) 16:19, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

25 million deaths

According to the research I have done online the Black Death killed 25 million people. The number provided is a little to high from what I see on the internet from reputable sites.

Could some fix this

It is true that the sources cited for death figures are poor and we need better ones, but it is very unlikely that they would give a figure as low as 25 million. Dudley Miles (talk) 19:18, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

25 million deaths is thought to of died in Europe alone TaipingRebellion1850 (talk) 02:15, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

“According to the research I have done online” Yeah thats not how wikipedia works--2601:3C5:8200:97E0:9D56:1D0A:24D2:94C4 (talk) 23:56, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

The truth is that scientists just don't know how many people died from a relative poorly documented disease from almost 700 years ago. Wikifan153 (talk) 22:22, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Other rodents?

I see in the current article: "...likely carried by fleas living on the black rats..." which is certainly the conventional wisdom. However I do remember reading several years ago that some historians felt the rats had gotten a bad rap, that the fleas had actually been carried by "Asian gerbils". I had never heard about this, and still know nothing about it... but it might be interesting if the article had more coverage of the evidence we have for specific forms of transmission, and for alternative theories, if there are serious historians who believe in them.

This is covered in note e. The theory is that plague is endemic in gerbil fleas in Central Asia. When the gerbil population booms and crashes the fleas move to alternative hosts, including rats. The disease is then carried by the rats to Europe. There are no gerbils in Europe. Dudley Miles (talk) 21:24, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 September 2021

142.154.47.142 (talk) 06:17, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

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 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. — LauritzT (talk) 08:04, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

A sentence in the introduction is self-contradictory

"There is evidence that once it came ashore, the Black Death was in large part spread by fleas – which cause pneumonic plague –" - That would be the bubonic form, not the pneumonic form, right? --Svennik (talk) 11:15, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

I have corrected the error. Dudley Miles (talk) 13:25, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Source

“Most likely from rats on Genoese slave ships is an absurd assertion and there is zero scholarly assertion on this point which seems inflammatory. Salvatoredelcaverno (talk) 03:31, 26 November 2021 (UTC)