Talk:List of historical plagues

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Hey Wetman -- thought this was my assignment. But -- we are working from two different assumptions. My definition in progress is not dealing solely with bubonic plague (we have an article about that), but with the medical, historical and social ramifications of epidemic disease. Why don't you tell me what you had in mind for this page and we'll see what works best? WBardwin 00:13, 27 May 2005 (UTC)\

Sorry. Busy fingers make a rat's next. Revert me! I'll be patient and see what you come up with. --Wetman 00:38, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I think it's fine for a beginning. There are so many ways we can direct people to articles about infectious epidemic disease -- to the Columbian/Amerind contact, to historic plagues, to the modern AIDS articles and finally to current isssues like the ongoing fear of avian flu. That's what came to my mind when you brought the page up. Sometimes simple disambig. pages direct people without defining their search. So, that's what I thought I would do here. We still might need more disambig. entries on the page you made, probably some of those now listed here. And I've thought about a list page on plagues for a couple of months, perhaps sorted by disease, or location or time frame. Lots of ways of looking at this large social history issue. Think about it as I putter around. Thanks. WBardwin 01:16, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

So -- am I thinking about an article titled: "Plague and Human History"??? Much of the plague definition could be placed in epidemic and the beginnings of a real list is in List of epidemics. This partial list has only two sections / sorted by different criteria. I have some good reference material to add. What would be the best way to divide it up?

1) by date? good for historians. (i.e. divided into ancient history, medieval history, early modern history and modern day??)

2) by causal agent? good for medical readers. (i.e. smallpox, typhus, bubonic plague, unidentified agent etc??)

3) by geographic area -- (probably by continent??) good for epidemiologists and people interested in histories of individual countries. (but would cause duplication for most of the pandemics, and some epidemics in border regions.)

What and how much should go on the new disambig. page?

We should see also:

• Endemic
• Pandemic
• Epizootic

Please brainstorm with me on this. Thanks. WBardwin 04:55, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

The Black Death

There is a theory that says that the bubonic plague could not have caused "The Black Death", the pandemic that halved the european population several times during the middle ages. First, the particular kind of rat that spreads the disease is not endemic to Europe; second, the european writings documenting the disease never mention rats dying prior to the outbreak; third: bubonic plague – being carried by rats and their flea – spreads very slowly and usually dies out after a few tens of kilometers, unlike the black death, which spread lightning fast and gripped the whole of Europe. The evidence suggests that The Black Death was caused by another AIRBORN disease. That disease died out because the european population slowly got immune to it (documents show that a smaller and smaller percent of the population got sick and died with every new epidemic).

Regarding your comments on the alternative causes of the Black Death -- please see sections in that article dealing with those theories. If you have additional information, please feel free to edit it in. WBardwin 17:24, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't have enough confidence in my english skills to edit articles :). I just read the Black Death article and it does present the alternative theory. The problem is that this article does not, and it passes the bubonic plague as a CERTAIN cause for the Black Death pandemic. Some people might not even get to the other article and read the whole story. That's why I felt that a note saying that there's an alternative theory (with a link to the section in the Black Death article) would be worth including. --82.79.168.47 20:34, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Changes without discussion??

Re: Plague and List of Bubonic plague outbreaks. At least three editors had plans for the original Plague article, as you might notice on the discussion page. Consensus is a Wiki virtue, is it not? So, why did you decide to change without listing your reasons and allowing discussion? What is your intention in splitting the article? Will watch "your" new list page for response. WBardwin 23:18, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Indeed the changes were abrupt and I did attempt some discussion, at Talk:Plague (disambiguation) where I did say "These changes may be confusing and I'm happy to disucss them".

I'll explain what I did and why. Firstly I consider my actions to be a stop-gap measure to fix a terrible navigational problem. Plague was dealt with horribly, and I fixed the situation temporarily. The changes are not meant to be permanent, particularly the creation of this list. I discovered Plague (in this state) as a disambiguation page, and also Plague (disambiguation) (in this state). In that state, Plague wan't a dab, it was a list of Bubonic plague outbreaks (now I see there was some attempt to expand to smallpox etc, so a move to List of plague outbreaks may be appropriate), so I moved it to List of Bubonic plague outbreaks.

I then made Plague redirect to Plague (disambiguation), and removed any duplicated List of Bubonic plague outbreaks from Plague (disambiguation).

The reason why Plague (in this state) was not approriate as an article is that is half-heartedly discussed the Bubonic plague instead of directing a reader to the Bubonic plague article. If a more appropriate article is created in the future then I'll support that existing at Plague, but at the moment Plague should redirect to Plague (disambiguation).

Immediate action that I think needs to be done is move List of Bubonic plague outbreaks to List of plague outbreaks, you agree?

--Commander Keane 04:59, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

well, the original plague article was created at the spur of the moment, as three of us were trying to organize the vast amount of information on plague's impact on human culture, specifically bubonic at the time. I'm afraid we set it up as a place holder while more research and thinking was done. So -- really no harm done. I suppose I was feeling guilty about putting off the research an article of that magnitude is going to take. I've done a little expansion to the original text in preparation for the bigger article. I don't think I'll be able to coerce my reference librarian to letting me bring home the two volumes of plague encyclopedia I will need anytime soon, at least until after the holidays. If anyone else has information on other disease outbreaks - we could make a start on distinct lists on smallpox, typhus, etc. Please forgive my cranky note. Best wishes, and again my apologies. WBardwin 01:40, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid I jumped into this area ignorant of this discussion - and didn't realize you guys had been working on the same issue. I have been approaching it from the disambiguation angle and hope I have been doing useful stuff but should connect with any plans here before I go much further. When I went through the disambiguating all the links to plague, I have been using the following criteria:

• If it had to do with the effects of the epidemics in Europe from the 14th to early 18th century, I change the link (usually not the word linked) to Black Plague.
• If it had to do with the medical aspects in particular or are appear to be about the specific disease(s) caused by Yersinia pestis, I link it to Bubonic plague.
• If it had to do with the Biblical Plagues, I link to Plagues of Egypt
• If it had to do with the agent of more generic epidemics, I link it to Pestilence or Pandemic depending on context.
• In a few cases, a direct reference to Yersinia pestis made sense.

I think a good way to proceed is to describe what articles should exist and then figure out what the articles should be named. From what I have seen here in Wikipedia, the following seem to be articles we would want. The names are proposals mainly to be able to talk about them here, the final "real" article names can be discussed later:

Articles

• "Plague (epidemic)" - a discussion of important epidemics in history (beyond just Yersinia).
• "Plague (medicine)" - the diseases caused by Yersinia pestis.
• "Plague (history)" - overview history of epidemics supposed to be of Yersinia origin and their impact.
• "Plague (biblical)" - the "Plagues of Egypt"

• "Black Death" - the 14th century epidemic and its consequences.
• "The Plague of xxxx" - particular epidemics and their consequences.

Naming

• "Plague (epidemic)" might better be Epidemic (history)
• "Plague (medicine)" seems to match Bubonic plague as it is now.
• "Plague (history)" seems to match this List of Bubonic plague outbreaks with some history expanded from the other articles.
• "Plague (biblical)" seems to match Plagues of Egypt okay.
• The "Black Death" might be narrowed down to the one century and be referenced from "Plague (history)" - an the "The Plague of xxxx" would similarly be handled.

Let me know what you think - and how I can help. It might make sense to continue my disambiguation work anyway as described at the top of this massive update (it should be easier to adjust to any article motion later), but I'll wait a bit to see what anyone thinks. John (Jwy) 19:20, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Missing Plague?

I'm currently reading an old (1975) Readers Digest hard cover book and it has a section called "The disease that changed history".

Among the usual outbreaks discussed it also details a 1910 outbreak of Bubonic Plague in Siberia that lasted 7 months and killed over 60,000 people, it especially went into detail on the cause of the plague as it originated in Marmots not rats.

I've been unable to find anything online about it. Can anyone confirm this outbreak and if confirmed in what artical(s) should it be posted? Wayne 13:27, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at Third Pandemic which originated in Asia near Siberia, has been associated with marmots, and spread the plague worldwide. Hope that helps. WBardwin 04:46, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

What about syphilis? I read that syphilis has killed 100 million people since 1900, or 4 times the number who died during the bubonic, that it reached epidemic proportion shortly after its first appearence in the late 15th century. Maybe it's as no one wants to brings up that the native Americans gave the Europeans that as a going away present! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.103.184.76 (talk) 22:37, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Merge with Pestilence article

I recently added a little material here on plague and its effect on human history (see early discussion at top of this page). Our idea may be related to the Pestilence stub. Merge? Use the Pestilence page for the material with broader scope, Plague and pestilence, and leave the list here? Comments? WBardwin 20:36, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

It's been months. I'm turning "Pestilence" into a disambiguation page, unless great howls are heard. Here's the only bit I removed; use it elsewhere as appropriate:

The 14th-century English poet Geoffrey Chaucer spoke of "pestilence" in "The Pardoner's Tale", referring to the Black Death:

Ther cam a privee theef men clepeth Deeth,

That in this contree al the peple sleeth,

And with his spere he smoot his herte atwo,

And wente his wey withouten wordes mo.

He hath a thousand slayn this pestilence.

—Yamara ✉ 17:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Article is (probably) overconfident in attributing some plagues to a virus instead of Y. Pestis

There was a series of anon edits back in July that collectively presented as fact the contemporary hypothesis that the Black Death and some similar plagues were not Y. Pestis at all, but some viral hemorrhagic disease. Now, I'm not an expert here, but my impression is that this idea does not yet have general acceptance. (Obviously, the fact that you can find a reference for the claim does not prove it's generally accepted.) Someone who knows more about it than I do should edit this to a more neutral presentation. --Trovatore (talk) 10:25, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I totally agree with you, Trovatore. As such, I am editing the paragraph with the "repudiation" of the Y. pestis theory so that it says that there are alternative theories but this is the most accepted.Azureprophet (talk) 22:00, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

RE: Black Death 14th cen.: While it may have started as Bubonic Plague, it became Pneumonic Plague, which is spread through aerosols from people with infected lungs coughing. It spreads faster and kills faster in that form. Calling Pneumonic Plague "hemorrhagic plague" is not completely accurate, nor does that term correspond to modern terms. I am not editing the article, but I think that it would be nice if a historian rewrote it. PLewicke (talk) 20:06, 14 May 2009 (UTC)