Return of the Black Death: The World's Greatest Serial Killer [Hardcover]

The return of the Black Death tries to give an overview of the spread of the the Plague during the middle ages and renaissance and tries to bedunk history with regards to the prevalent theories on the cause of this epidemic. And I must say it does it very well. It's a good history read with a healthy dose of science and rationality sprinkled on top. The writing style is engaging and understandable, even for a layman.

What most struck me is the amount of panic a small epidemic, like SARS, can generate in our modern world and how a major epidemic like HIV/AIDS, which kills millions per year, gets, relatively speaking, so little attention.

A recommended read and a real eye-opener.

This book is completely un-putdownable. A fantastic piece of detective work, tracing the origins, progress and final extinction of the Black Death that swept through Europe in waves throughout the centuries, interlaced with human stories and real sympathy with the immense suffering endured by many thousands of its victims. It was not bubonic plague at all, but haemorrhagic plague that decimated whole countries - a truly horrifying and thankfully extinct virus that was uncontrollable and invincible. It's infectious incubation period of about 30 days ensured it spread far and wide before sufferers were even aware they had it.Forget about all you heard about fleas and rats. Had it been bubonic plague, there would have been much less to worry about! The authors finally speculate on what comes next, and how would we deal with it (bird flu???)and what is the most gruesome disease we can die of today (has to be ebola!). A truly great book, and one to make us think.

A real eye opener. To find out the the black plague was not bubonic as commongly thought, but a haemorrhagic plague that killed not only thousands in the Uk, but millions world-wide. This plague returned to decimate entire cities time and time again over a period of 400 years or more, finally seeming to disappear around the early 18th century. Or is it just in hiding?

The book is well written and interesting and does not baffle you too much with science.

Haemorrhagic plague (I am reliably informed by the book!) is a very nasty little disease to catch. Like Ebola, the sufferer literally bleeds to death and his/her insides rot away, turning to liquid. The symptons of haemorrahgic plague are very similar to that of bubonic plague with the black `spots' or bubis being the blood showing under the skin. The final horrible, visible stages of the disease through to death are very painful and the sufferer experiences flu like symptons, vomiting blood, and diarrhea and finally falls into a coma. According to the book some sufferers were in so much pain that it drove them mad and they would throw themselves into the street screaming or even out of windows in a bid to escape the pain. These final symptons take place over a few days (from 5 to 12) and at present there is no known cure.

The authors set out to prove that the black death was caused by hemorrhagic plague, by showing the following differences: that the incubation and infectious period was a lot longer in heamorrhagic plague (approx 32 days) whereas the incubation period was a lot shorter in bubonic plague only 2 to 6 days. Therefore haemorrahagic plague was able to spread a lot wider as the killer symptoms only appeared in the final days of the disease and before that, the sufferer to all intents and purposes, seemed completely healthy. Bubonic plague is typically spread by rats and in accurate reports of bubonic plague, the biggest casualty is the rats themselves, no large number of dead rats were reported in the cases of the black death. Finally the black death spread over a large area very quickly, this would not have been possible if it had been spread by rats due to the short incubation period. It was more likely to have been spread by humans who traveled quickly on horseback and by carriage.

The final chapters look at the possibility of when it will return to Europe and look at what is likely to happen to the infrastructure when it does hit in large numbers. The authors believe that when it does reoccur, the only way to stop the spread is by quarantining large numbers of people, as there is no cure. These people are likely to die, but at least it will contain the disease. A nice thought to leave you with!!!