Academic literature on the topic 'Plague'

The artist discusses his Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition “the emotional plague” held at the Reese Museum in Johnson City, Tennessee from March 2nd through March 27th, 2020 in which he examines a number of literary and invented narrative subjects influenced by science fiction, Surrealism and the current political climate in an attempt to reconcile the social and the personal through the creative act. Largely improvisational in their conception, the paintings and drawings in this exhibition reflect ideas derived from writers, thinkers and artists including Wilhelm Reich, J.G. Ballard, W.S. Burroughs and Goya, all distilled through the uncertain territory of Raynolds’ personal, internal landscape. He utilizes an amalgam of characters, tropes, and stories as metaphorical expressions of social psychosis and decay.

Yersinia pestis, agent causal de la peste, persiste dans la nature maintenu par un cycle enzootique dans des foyers conduisant à la réémergence de la maladie. En Afrique du Nord, où une réémergence a eu lieu après des années de ‘silence’, nous avons répertorié les différents épisodes ainsi que le nombre de cas en sur six pays à compter de 1940 en mettant en évidence l’importation de la maladie et un mode de contamination négligé, la transmission par voie orale. Une étude en Algérie sur 237 micromammifères confirme deux foyers et en revèle trois nouveaux porteurs d’un nouveau génotype (MST) de biotype Orientalis. Apodemus sylvaticus est par la même ajouté à la liste des rongeurs pestiférés. La projection des foyers de peste ainsi actualisés sur une carte géographique et écologique met en évidence la proximité des foyers de peste aux points d’eau saumâtre. Une étude statistique a confirmé une corrélation significative entre foyer de peste/eau salée à une proximité minimale &lt;3 km en comparaison à des zones d’eau douce. Des échantillons environnementaux salés ont permis l’isolement d’une souche Y. pestis Algeria 3. Cette découverte confortée par l’observation expérimentale de la résistance de Y. pestis à un milieu hyper salé à 150g/L NaCl se traduisant par un protéome spécifique en réponse à ce stress avec une forme d’adaptation de type forme L de la bactérie dans ce type d’environnement. Notre travail éclaire de façon originale un facteur méconnu de persistance tellurique de Y. pestis, conditionnant la réémergence de la peste dans des foyers séculaires au Maghreb contrairement aux rivages Nord de la Méditerranée où la peste autochtone a disparu depuis un siècle<br>Yersinia pestis, the causal agent of plague, persists in nature maintained by an enzootic cycle in foci leading to the re-emergence of the disease. In North Africa, where re-emergence took place after years of 'silence', we have listed the various episodes and the number of cases in six countries from 1940 onwards, highlighting the importation of the disease and A method of neglected contamination, oral transmission. A study in Algeria on 237 micromammals confirms two foci and reveals three new carriers of a new genotype (MST) of orientalis biotype. Apodemus sylvaticus is by the same added to the list of plague rodents. The projection of the plague foci thus updated on a geographical and ecological map highlights the proximity of plague foci to brackish water points. A statistical study confirmed a significant correlation between plague / salt water at a minimal proximity &lt;3 km compared to freshwater areas. Saline environmental samples allowed the isolation of a Y. pestis Algeria 3 strain. This discovery was confirmed by the experimental observation of the resistance of Y. pestis to a hyper-saline medium at 150 g / L NaCl resulting in a specific proteome In response to this stress with an adaptation form of form L of the bacterium in this type of environment. Our work illuminates in an original way an unknown factor of telluric persistence of Y. pestis, conditioning the re-emergence of the plague in secular centers in the Maghreb unlike the northern shores of the Mediterranean where the indigenous plague has disappeared for a century

This thesis expands upon the notion that Thucydides’ plague narrative in his History of the Peloponnesian War punctuates his argument for the unique greatness of the Peloponnesian War. Through the plague, Thucydides displays the collapse of Greek society’s standards and practices. He does this by describing a plague which does not conform to 5th century BCE Greek medical ideas. Balance, human art, and divine intervention all fail in their attempts to restore the health of the individual and society. Thucydides portrays the plague as a narrative aggressor whose intent is to topple Athens and its ideals. Lucretius’ plague narrative, because it narrates the same historical moment but from a different perspective, is then discussed in order to demonstrate how other authors have used Thucydides’ technique.

This dissertation catalogues and examines Albert Camus's thematic repetitiveness as seen in his fiction and in how this repetitiveness relates to the world view presented in the so-called guillotine passage in his novel The Plague: that the world consists of scourges, victims, and an elusive third domain. A scourge can be an aggressor. It causes suffering and even death. The plague and other infirmities, both physical and mental, are aggressors. They are indiscriminate, merciless, and oftentimes deadly. Tyrants, too, are aggressors, some of which cling to the arbitrary, while others have a considerably more formal agenda. An aggressor can be metaphysical: the inner plague. Some aggressors, Like poverty and the climate, can also have a positive side to them. A scourge can also be an aggression--what the aggressor causes. They usually cannot be justified (existential separation, death, murder, execution, suicide), but some aggressions lead to enlightenment or positive change (exile, imprisonment, separation from loved ones). Yet one aggression, solitude of a certain kind, can actually be a desired and pleasant experience. Victims are the second domain. Camus focuses primarily on children, artists, clergy, judges and lawyers. The first three groups are presented in a balanced fashion, with emphasis on both the positive and the negative. Judges and lawyers are presented in a negative light, with only slight deviations. The third domain consists of true doctors (true friends) and peace/happiness, with true doctors--who are not necessarily doctors--contributing to the attainment of happiness or at least an improvement in circumstances. Light, the sea, other aspects of nature and sensual pleasures can also contribute to finding peace/happiness.

La peste è una malattia infettiva che, a partire dal Neolitico, ha contribuito a plasmare la storia dell'umanità molte volte in passato. La peste è endemica ancora oggi in alcune parti del mondo e uccide molte persone ogni anno. È quindi importante continuare a studiarla perché l'analisi delle epidemie del passato può darci informazioni sulla patogenicità, la selettività e le modalità di trasmissione di questa riemergente e importante malattia infettiva. Ci sono molte domande aperte su come la peste abbia colpito le popolazioni del passato: uccideva indiscriminatamente, come ipotizzano i dati storici? Ci sono opinioni discordanti sull'argomento: alcuni ricercatori hanno suggerito che Y. pestis ha selezionato le sue vittime tra gli individui più fragili e deboli della popolazione; altri hanno proposto che tra le vittime della peste ci fossero individui più sani rispetto a quelli in un cimitero non di peste. Sia gli studi antropologici che quelli paleodemografici non sono stati finora in grado di tracciare un quadro chiaro e condiviso della situazione. La presente ricerca ha cercato di fornire alcune risposte a questa domanda, se la peste abbia o meno selezionato le sue vittime. La tesi è stata organizzata in sette capitoli, e raccoglie cinque studi originali. Il 1° capitolo fornisce uno stato dell’arte sul dibattito esistente riguardante la mortalità della peste, insieme a tutte le possibili variabili che possono influenzarla: sesso, età e fragilità; così come il ruolo del ferro nelle malattie infettive. Nel 2° capitolo, abbiamo revisionato tutti gli studi antropologici che fornissero i dati sul sesso, l'età e lo stato di salute dei resti scheletrici delle vittime di peste. Analizzando statisticamente i dati raccolti abbiamo cercato di individuare una qualsiasi influenza sulla peste da parte di queste variabili. Nel 3° capitolo abbiamo sviluppato nuove linee guida per l'analisi delle lesioni porotiche del cranio e delle orbite. Nei resti scheletrici umani queste lesioni sono generalmente considerate segni d’anemia. Nel 4° capitolo si propone un nuovo indice di fragilità per l'analisi dei resti scheletrici umani. La fragilità è il carico di stress biologico che un individuo ha sostenuto in vita e porta ad una maggiore suscettibilità alle infezioni. La fragilità sui resti scheletrici si valuta attraverso i biomarcatori, i segni lasciati dallo stress fisiologico sulle ossa e sui denti. Il nuovo indice, per la prima volta, considera la gravità e la guarigione delle lesioni, assegna un peso a ciascun biomarcatore e può essere utilizzato anche su resti non completi. Nel 5° capitolo, utilizzando il nuovo indice e le nuove linee guida per lo studio delle lesioni porotiche, si analizza un campione di vittime di peste e uno di vittime non di peste della stessa regione e dello stesso secolo (17° secolo). Lo scopo era confrontare i campioni per evidenziare una possibile selezione della peste in base alla fragilità pregressa degli individui. Abbiamo notato alcune differenze nel modo in cui la peste ha selezionato uomini e donne. Abbiamo ulteriormente indagato questa differenza nella mortalità per peste, attraverso l'analisi di dati paleoepidemiologici da report medici, riguardanti le epidemie di peste bubbonica tra il 1813 e il 1945 in diverse parti del mondo. I report medici ci danno informazioni sul contagio e sulla guarigione dalla peste che gli scheletri non possono fornirci. Infine, nell'ultimo capitolo, si riportano le conclusioni e ulteriori idee di ricerca. Questa tesi non solo contribuisce con nuovi metodi di analisi della fragilità dei resti scheletrici umani, e con nuove linee guida sull'analisi delle lesioni porotiche del cranio, ma risponde ad alcune delle domande sulla peste, fornendo ipotesi fondate sul meccanismo che ne regola suscettibilità e mortalità.<br>Plague is an infectious disease that has affected humanity from the Neolithic until the present days and has shaped the history of the humankind on many occasions in the past. Plague is not only a disease of the past; it is still present today in some parts of the world, and kills many people every year. It is therefore important to keep studying it as the analysis of the past epidemics can give us information about the pathogenicity, the selectivity and the transmission mode of this re-emerging and important infectious disease. There are many questions on how plague affected the populations of the past: did it kill indiscriminately as historical record assume? There are discordant opinions on the matter: some researchers suggested that Y. pestis selected its victims between the frailest and weak individuals; others contrarily proposed that between the victims of plague, there are healthier individuals than in an attritional cemetery. Both anthropological and paleodemographical studies have not been able to draw a clear and shared picture of the situation until now. The present research attempted to provide some answers to this question, whether plague selected or not its victims. The thesis was organised into seven chapters, reporting on five studies. The 1st chapter provides an introduction about state of the art on the plague mortality debate, along with all the possible discriminant variables that can influence it: sex, age and frailty, as well as the role of iron in infectious diseases. In the 2nd chapter, we reviewed all published anthropological studies on plague victims, that yielded data on sex, age and health status of individuals. With the collected data, we attempted to discern if any selection pattern by plague was detectable. In the 3rd chapter, we propose newly developed guidelines for the analysis of porotic lesions of the skull and the orbits. These lesions are generally considered a symptom of anaemia in human skeletal remains. The 4th chapter reports about a newly developed index of frailty for the analysis of human skeletal remains. Frailty is the biological stress load an individual had accumulated during life, and it can cause more susceptibility to infections. Frailty is assessed in human skeletal remains trough the analysis of the biomarkers of physiological stress left on bones and teeth. The new index considers for the first time not only the severity and healing of the lesions but assigns a weight to each biomarker and can be used on incomplete skeletal remains. In the 5th chapter, we used the new index of frailty and the guidelines for the collection of porous lesions, to analyse two samples, one of plague victims and one of non-plague victims from the same region of Italy and the same century (17th c.), to investigate whether plague made a selection based on their frailty. We noticed some differences in how plague selected men and women. In the 6th chapter we further investigated this possible difference in mortality for plague through the analysis of some paleoepidemiological data in medical records from 1813-1945 in different parts of the world. The medical reports provided us with data about contagion and the recovering from plague, information that skeletons cannot provide. We noticed some interesting and significant differences in susceptibility to infection and, more importantly, in rates of mortality and recovering from bubonic plague. Finally, in the last chapter, we detailed the conclusions and answers we were able to draw, and we proposed further research ideas for the future. In conclusion, this thesis not only contributes with new methods to analyse and determine frailty in human skeletal remains, as well as with new guidelines on the analysis of the porotic lesions of the cranium but answers some of the questions regarding plague mortality, providing sounding hypothesis on the mechanism regulating susceptibility and mortality.

Plague is often thought of as an historic disease; however it has been classified as re-emerging. Many disciplines have conducted research independently on these historic outbreaks, with the aim of better understanding the disease and its impact. Epidemiological models designed to show the spread of plague in the past have been created using modern data on transmission as a framework. This thesis uses and argues for a multidisciplinary approach in plague analysis with a foundation in the historic record. Seventeenth century outbreaks in Venice, London, and Eyam (County Derbyshire), were selected because the presence of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for plague, has been confirmed using suicide polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Theoretical models created with a SEIRDS model are compared to mortality data obtained from parish records. This same data is also used to generate maps in ArcGIS to show the spread of plague during outbreaks in London and Venice. Primary source accounts of plague inform further analysis, and a case study on Eyam demonstrates why the historic record is important when conducting research on historic outbreaks of disease. Each case study also examines cultural, environment, public health, and socioeconomic factors that may have influenced the outbreaks with a subsequent discussion on the long-term impacts of plague. The historic record is also used to show how primary sources can be utilized in creating models when mortality data is not available, further demonstrating the importance of multidisciplinary research methods.

This thesis discusses in detail four Italian vernacular plague tracts written by doctors in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These doctors used the popular genre of plague tracts to promote their views on how to improve the physical and spiritual well-being of the people in their communities. The plague tracts illustrate their concerns about the expertise and status of doctors, apprehensions about the behaviour of communities during plague epidemics, and the ever-present fears that the plague was both a symptom of and a catalyst for immoral behaviour. This thesis particularly focuses on the connections early modern doctors perceived between spiritual and physical health and the varied solutions they suggested for the improvement of the societies the lived in.

Recently, due to COVID-19 pandemic, epidemic preparedness programs have received particular attention. Unfortunately, the importance of preparedness and rapid response to epidemic events reached politicians and the public only when it was too late to prevent or limit this infectious disease. This pandemic has rapidly exposed the enormous vulnerabilities of modern human societies; globalization, fast transport, climate change, high population density, and ecological transitions are all aspects of modern societies that can favour and influence the emergence of new and old human pathogens. Although it is currently impossible to predict the emergence of a new pathogen before it actually emerges, analysing past microorganisms and epidemics can allow us to learn from past successes and mistakes, so that present and future surveillance and monitoring programs can be improved. With these premises, this thesis project incorporates biological and historical investigations to examine which information related to microorganisms and epidemics from the past can be derived from remains of organic material and historical records. In the first part of the project, human teeth, recovered from an archaeological site dated to the period of the Milan plague of 1629-1631, were processed to investigate the presence of traces of Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague. Both DNA and proteins associated with the pathogen of interest have been searched. Preliminary results for these analyses were inconclusive, but the metagenomic analysis is still in progress and the results will be available in the next few months. During the second part of the project, historical and epidemiological investigations were carried out on textual sources associated with past plague epidemics. The first study (Manuscript n. 1) involved the development of a new informatic tool aimed at extracting useful information from a huge amount of textual data. This tool was applied to derive information regarding the 1720–1722 plague of Marseille and the 1629–1631 plague in northern Italy. The analysis of text related to these two epidemic episodes revealed that plague-related words were associated with the words “merchandise”, “movable”, “tatters”, “bed” and “clothes”, while no association was found with rats. These results support the hypothesis of a role of human ectoparasites during the second plague pandemic. Moreover, the results suggested a potential future application of this tool for the prediction of pathogen, responsible for a described disease, in ancient texts. The second study (Manuscript n.2) concerned the analysis of the progress of the plague epidemic that hit the city of Milan during the years 1629-1631. The registers of the deaths of the city of Milan for the year 1630 were digitized and subsequently used for the spatio-temporal analysis of the epidemic and historical events related to it; in particular, the effect that a religious mass gather had on the spread of the epidemic in the city was analysed. The last part of the thesis project was focused on the research and study of the bibliography concerning the paleomicrobiological studies performed on ancient human microbiota (Manuscript n.3).

Plague is a classic zoonosis caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and is subject to the International Health Regulations, 1969. In the last two millennia, plague has become widespread, with three pandemics occurring in the 6th, 14th and 20th centuries. Currently, plague outbreaks and epidemics still occur worldwide. This study attempts to develop formal work methods and procedures for plague surveillance and control by environmental health practitioners as a strategy to ensure that field data can be integrated within the municipal, provincial and national spheres of government. A qualitative, explorative, descriptive, inductive and deductive research design was followed. A documentary research approach was employed as the primary method of data collection. To obtain additional information, both semi-structured personal interviews and physical observations during plague surveillance were adopted by the researcher. The organisational structure of the health care system in South Africa was analysed to identify and explain the role and functions of relevant decision-makers related to the surveillance and control of plague within the different spheres of government. Legislative measures regarding plague surveillance and control were also presented. As a prerequisite for the development of work methods and procedures for plague surveillance and control, the epidemiology of plague was discussed with emphasis on the distribution and characteristics of the disease in South Africa. Important rodent reservoirs and flea vectors of plague in South Africa were identified. Clinical manifestations, diagnosis and treatment of plague were described and discussed. Within this qualitative study an attempt has been made to develop work methods (xiii) and procedures for plague surveillance and control in South Africa. Relevant field data forms to be used during plague surveillance and control strategies were also developed. Recommendations emanating from the study can be found in the final chapter.