The Chances Of Surviving The Black Death

Current Archaeology ^ | 3-29-2008

[Drango]

My mother in law told me about spending the summer in a cabin with her friend and their children in order to quarantine themselves from a polio outbreak

Smart move at the time. On some of the survivalist threads, you read about people with remote locations designed to outlast the next pandemic. The Black Death was spread or carried by fleas, via rodents if most accounts are true. The next pandemic MAY be avian flu if it crosses over to humans. I still don't know how people are going to keep birds off their hidden survival camp in Timbuxtoo. Besides, I want a ventilator and a doctor if it hits me.

And I don't even want to think about a terrorist induced plauge. ~shudder.

[Myrddin]

I'm accustomed to doing the morphology, pure cultures and physiology tests to make a determinative test in the lab. Recent advances allow a test for strep throat using a DNA match in a doctor's office. The typical "shotgun" approach of most physicians is to prescribe the latest pharmaceutical product hawked by the manufacturer's rep. A few even take an extra moment to peruse the PDR in hope's of a better diagnosis.

Until an instant, foolproof method of diagnosis is developed, we had all better be actively involved in our health & well-being!

Good microbiological diagnostics are rarely instant. Correct collection of a specimen is critical. Can you remember the last time you observed a doctor collecting a sputum specimen or doing a nasopharyngeal swab? Enteric samples are especially gross. My grad school advisor tossed me an "unknown". It took 36 hours to culture and prove it was genus Arizona. Subsequent immunological tests were used to identify the species. I handed him the results in 3 days. All the results were dead on. I got a C on the lab because I didn't put the date on my results. Others screwed with their work for 3 weeks and didn't get the right answer. Suffice to say, that behavior by my advisor was petty and stupid.

My lab skills are dated at this point. I spend my days doing digital signal processing. It's every bit as fun and I don't have to smell pots of agar simmering over a Bunsen burner.

[DakotaGator]

Oh yes. And the political will to enforce quarantine and isolation is not there.

It would get ugly quickly!

[DakotaGator]

Regardless, they were saying how the ER’s were all full and they were sending accident vitims to other hospitals outside the county, etc.

Exactly! As you are gently pointing out; when this is happening everywhere, there's no place for treatment.

[Myrddin]

Oh yes. And the political will to enforce quarantine and isolation is not there.

HIV is a simple demonstration that we don't have the political will to deal with a communicable disease that can not be cured. West Nile virus was allowed to become endemic in North America because we're still laboring under the false claims of Rachel Carson about DDT. Millions are dead of malaria because of her big lie. As a child, I used to run through the fog disbursed by the mosquito control trucks in Hawaii. It was DDT. My wife the the same. We're both just fine.

[DakotaGator]

It's every bit as fun and I don't have to smell pots of agar simmering over a Bunsen burner.

LOL! Only the most cultured need apply ;-)

Seriously, physicians practicing "shotgun" medication techniques allow too many diseases too much time. It's going to bite us all in the butt one day.

[DakotaGator]

Concur on HIV! And the DDT big lie is guaranteed to set me off like a 4th of July rocket!!

I am old enough to have the same childhood DDT-fog experience as you and your wife. It was a good time to be a child.

Now these very same parks I used to play in are unusable. They have been taken over by mosquitoes. And disease is spreading. Oh, but the politicians spend serious tax dollars on ineffective chemicals.

Thank you stupid voters and gutless politicians (another blood-sucking creature).

[blam]

" Besides, I want a ventilator and a doctor if it hits me."

Lol. It's likely to be your doctor in the remote bunker.

[Myrddin]

West Nile virus was unknown in the U.S. when I moved to Idaho in Dec 2000. We now lose about 500 horses and quite a few humans in Idaho each year. The hardest hit areas are about 25 miles north of Pocatello and about 30 miles west.

All the foo foo about providing "mosquito nets" to combat malaria in 3rd world countries would be totally unnecessary if DDT was in use again. It's going to bite us in the butt with food production too.

[To Hell With Poverty]

And “Sean of the Dead” for a lark!

[DakotaGator]

It's just amazing that up until the late 1960s western civilization was making great progress in controlling and eliminating diseases which were the scourge of mankind. Then the environazis started getting their way.

Now millions are dead because of political correctness. And it is only going to get worse.

[Myrddin]

Political correctness, diversity, tort lawyers, insurance companies and meddling government agencies are among the list of reasons I decided to pursue computer science and electrical engineering instead of medical school. I graduated with a degree in Molecular Biology from UCSD at age 19. A year later, I was finished with my coursework for the master's in pathogenic bacteriology. I'm really not sorry about the change in direction. My sister pursued an RN and has worked at Mercy Hospital since 1978. She has had multiple occurrences of delivering a baby by C-section and being informed that the mother was infected with HIV AFTER the incision into her abdomen had been made. She has been stuck with hypodermic needles used on a person with full blown AIDS in spite of having used double gloves. No thanks. I'm not missing out on that world.

[DakotaGator]

Congratulations on your escape!

Sorry your sister is trapped. Must be hard being in that professional situation and also watching your community go to heck. San Diego County used to be a wonderful place to live & work.

Maybe sis will learn from her brother's example ;-)

[Myrddin]

I took the additional step of relocating from San Diego to Pocatello, ID. In February, I relocated my son to Pocatello. A week before the "rescue" trip, there was a murder/kidnap in his condominium parking lot. It occurred less than 30 yards from my son's front door. The Eastlake development is having a rash of new criminal activity.

[wafflehouse]

i highly recommend this book:



Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe

mass graves were not an indication of financial status as the plague went on

[Mr Ramsbotham]

DeFoe’s book recalled events of the London Plague of 1664-65; not the medieval plague.