'Return of the Black Death: The World's Greatest Serial Killer' - Susan Scott and Christopher Duncan
Well I've just spent a most enjoyable morning scaring the shit out of myself between working on the diss and washing my hair.
I'm sure most of you know I'm (possibly worryingly) obsessed with the Black Death, and this book is the reason why. I saw the TV documentary years ago and recorded it, and spent many happy hours one holiday watching it on repeat. Later, when browsing the MoL shop just before I left MoLAS I spotted the book and nabbed it.
Now, if you want to freak Toria out, barring the phobia which is an evil and unforgiveble thing to do, give it to her in print form. Being such a bibliophile means that when I read things I get far more scared and for a longer period of time than if I watch or hear them - witness the book of The Birds vs. a horror film (though not the Hitchcock film The Birds which is a load of tosh - seriously, read the book).
So while the documentary was worrying, I loved it. Same as I love the Black Death exhibition/video room thingy in the Museum of London, which, incidentally, carries footage from and is based on the documentary. Now I also love the book, but reading it, especially the last few chapters which deal with the Black Death's impact if it comes back, really really freaks me out.
The Black Death was not bubonic plague spread by fleas and rats - none of the contemporary evidence supports this, from the symptoms to the pattern of infection to the environmental conditions needed to support rats and therefore bubonic plague. Instead, it's a viral haemorrhagic fever, with an infectious period of three weeks before you show symptoms, an incredibly high mortality rate, and that gives you fever, delirium, swellings, massive amounts of pain and causes your internal organs to rot and liquify over the period of about five days between first showing symptoms and dying horribly. :)
And it's been around for thousands of years - the close correlation between eyewitness accounts of the symptoms and spread of the Plague of Athens in the fifth century BC, the Plague of Justinian in the sixth century AD, the Black Death in fifteenth-century Europe, and the following plagues that struck Europe continually for the next three hundred years, make it all one disease. And it's entirely likely that it'll be back, hence the last few chapters being really scary. :D
And I made cake and more chocolate crispy things.
I'm sure most of you know I'm (possibly worryingly) obsessed with the Black Death, and this book is the reason why. I saw the TV documentary years ago and recorded it, and spent many happy hours one holiday watching it on repeat. Later, when browsing the MoL shop just before I left MoLAS I spotted the book and nabbed it.
Now, if you want to freak Toria out, barring the phobia which is an evil and unforgiveble thing to do, give it to her in print form. Being such a bibliophile means that when I read things I get far more scared and for a longer period of time than if I watch or hear them - witness the book of The Birds vs. a horror film (though not the Hitchcock film The Birds which is a load of tosh - seriously, read the book).
So while the documentary was worrying, I loved it. Same as I love the Black Death exhibition/video room thingy in the Museum of London, which, incidentally, carries footage from and is based on the documentary. Now I also love the book, but reading it, especially the last few chapters which deal with the Black Death's impact if it comes back, really really freaks me out.
The Black Death was not bubonic plague spread by fleas and rats - none of the contemporary evidence supports this, from the symptoms to the pattern of infection to the environmental conditions needed to support rats and therefore bubonic plague. Instead, it's a viral haemorrhagic fever, with an infectious period of three weeks before you show symptoms, an incredibly high mortality rate, and that gives you fever, delirium, swellings, massive amounts of pain and causes your internal organs to rot and liquify over the period of about five days between first showing symptoms and dying horribly. :)
And it's been around for thousands of years - the close correlation between eyewitness accounts of the symptoms and spread of the Plague of Athens in the fifth century BC, the Plague of Justinian in the sixth century AD, the Black Death in fifteenth-century Europe, and the following plagues that struck Europe continually for the next three hundred years, make it all one disease. And it's entirely likely that it'll be back, hence the last few chapters being really scary. :D
And I made cake and more chocolate crispy things.