The Black Death and the Future of the Plague (original) (raw)

Plague: past, present, and future

PLoS Medicine, 2008

The Neglected Diseases section focuses attention either on a specific disease or describes a novel strategy for approaching neglected health issues in general.

Plagues Past, Paths Forward (2019)

Arc Humanities Blog, 2019

This is an invited guest blogpost to mark the 5th anniversary of the inaugural issue of *The Medieval Globe*. This was a special issue, devoted to the topic *Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death* (2014, with a bound-volume edition appearing in 2015). In the post, I revisit the genesis of the volume, and remark on all that has happened in plague studies in the intervening five years, including the discovery of Late Neolithic/Bronze Age plague (2015), the complete sequencing of several later medieval and early modern plague strains in Europe (2016 and 2018/2019), and developments in archaeology and History. In short, in some ways the volume has increasingly been making itself obsolete--a sign that our framing of plague's history in global terms was a fruitful assessment of the direction in which several fields in the sciences and Humanities would turn. For live links to all the highlighted work, go to the original blogpost here: https://arc-humanities.org/blog/2019/07/23/plagues-past-paths-forward/.

Lessons Learned from Historic Plague Epidemics: The Relevance of an Ancient Disease in Modern Times

Journal of Ancient Diseases & Preventive Remedies, 2014

Plague has been without doubt one of the most important and devastating epidemic diseases of mankind. During the past decade, this disease has received much attention because of its potential use as an agent of biowarfare and bioterrorism. However, while it is easy to forget its importance in the 21 st century and view the disease only as a historic curiosity, relegating it to the sidelines of infectious diseases, plague is clearly an important and re-emerging infectious disease. In today's world, it is easy to focus on its potential use as a bioweapon, however, one must also consider that there is still much to learn about the pathogenicity and enzoonotic transmission cycles connected to the natural occurrence of this disease. Plague is still an important, naturally occurring disease as it was 1,000 years ago. This review highlights some of the important aspects of the disease throughout history with a discussion of the current situation of naturally occurring plague in the 21 st century.

Plagues: Their Origin, History and Future

1997

Over the past few years, no doubt as a consequence of HIV/AIDS newspapers have been full of stories about the threat from plagues some such as TB and bubonic plague appear like spectres from the past while apparently new diseases such as E-coli and the Ebola virus threaten to run riot in the future. It is against such a background that Christopher Wills has published Plagues. Their origin, history and future.

Historical and Modern Responses to Plague Epidemics

Journal of humanitarian affairs, 2022

Despite its long history, plague has not been an internationally significant disease since the mid-twentieth century, and it has attracted minimal modern critical attention. Strategies for treating plague are generally outdated and of limited effectiveness. However, plague remains endemic to a few developing nations, most prominently Madagascar. The outbreak of a major plague epidemic across several Madagascan urban areas in 2017 has sparked a wider discourse about the necessity of improving global preparedness for a potential future plague pandemic. Beyond updating treatment modalities, a key aspect of improving preparedness for such a pandemic involves a process of sophisticated review of historical public health responses to plague epidemics. As part of this process, this article outlines and compares public health responses to three separate epidemics from the early modern era onwards: Marseille in 1720-22, San Francisco in 1900-04 and Madagascar in 2017. Based on this process, it identifies three key themes common to successful responses: (1) clear, effective and minimally bureaucratic public health protocols; (2) an emphasis on combating plague denialism by gaining the trust and cooperation of the affected population; and (3) the long-term suppression of plague through the minimisation of contact between humans and infected small mammals.

Can we make human plague history? A call to action

BMJ Global Health, 2019

In spite of the historical capacity to disrupt human societies, plague is currently a neglected disease. ► Given the resilience to be controlled in the wild, the focus should be put to prevent human transmission of plague. ► Research priorities include new diagnostic and therapeutic tools which are urgently needed, especially to deal with the pulmonary form of plague. ► A cross-disciplinary research approach is needed, including basic, ecological, clinical and social sciences.