The Black Death.

I've read that because the Black Death wiped out whole families--or perhaps just branches of families--that lawyers, particularly those learned in estate law, gained power and prestige.

It was during the Black Death, that the Vencentian Fathers were formed. As any New Yorker would know, these priests later founded St. John's University in Queens, NY.

if you're in NY, you might visit Stl. John's Univeristy's Library for more info.

Have you read 'Plagues and Peoples'? If not, it's probably the best book on the subject of how plague influences history.

http://bookstore.mywebworldcenter.com/n_0385121229.htm

On Amazon.com, you can browse 48 sample pages of the book too.

I also read In The Wake Of The Plague. It gives a fairly easy read overview of the effects of the plague.

There's also Germs, Guns, and Steel. It delves into disease but also technology that changed the times. I read the first review that there on Amazon - the white supremacy thing - that's a load of crap. Don't let it affect your interest.

I also saw a show on The Discovery Channel (I think) about a village in England that was completely wiped out by the plague, save a few. Whole families were wiped out, except maybe the mother or the father. They buried their spouses, all their children, and waited a until a year passed - nearby villages assumed eveyone was dead by then, and diddn't want to venture in any sooner fearing infection. A handful of people were surprisingly still there, everyone else having been buried for several months. The people that live there now are descendants of the village survivors and carry a gene that makes them immune to the plague. Some portion of the population will be immune to a given virus. This occurs with everything from the chicken pox to AIDS.

It's interesting to consider that, as time goes on, we may have only two groups of people. Those with natural immunities to viruses that wipe out populations and those who can afford the immunizations and treatments....and no one else. Maybe far fetched, but after watching that program it seems a bit more plausible.

I didn't think you could become immune to bacteria, can anyone provide information on this?

Which type of immunity are you talking about?

The immunity by birth I suppose that would mean through Anti-bodies recognizing the "foreign" object and allowing white blood cells to destroy it.

I didn't know bacteria could be identified by anti-bodies I thought it was reserved for viruses...this is all in reference to the above post where it was mentioned that a town is "immune" to the plague.

The only way I could see this is if the anti-bodies can identify it, and like I said, I didn't know it worked on bacteria, if it does.

Very well know immunoligcal facts. Check out a modern microbiology book. Very interesting reading.

The Black Death - would not touch it with a ten foot pole.

Regarding immunity I have no scientific data but I have been told I have a natural immunity to small pox. I know this because I have never had a reaction to a small pox vacination and that is what the doctors have told me. I may be the only person over 50 in the US without a smallpox vacanitation scar!

You can't retain a lifelong immunity to particular bacteria, so far as I know ('course, I could be wrong -- often am), but you can "train" your immune system to recognize them. When was the last time you had a tetanus booster?

I was going to recommend both In the Wake of the Plague, which I am reading now, and Guns, Germs and Steel but Sugar already did so.

There was a PBS program, perhaps a Nova show, on surviving the plague and the genetic marker it left which might point to people being able to survive AIDS.

Norman Cantor, whose writing is pageturningly thrilling but who sometimes is a bit cavalier with facts v conclusions, is great fun. He points out the growth of property law because of the Plague.

He does suggest that the plague was probably a mix of Bubonic Plague and Anthrax although I thought the above mentioned PBS program ruled out anthrax or at least diminished the role of anthrax in the death counts.

Is Setanta on this thread? Are you familiar with Welsh epic, Mabinogi? There is a section of the Mabinogi that deals with the main characters being in an empty landscape. I thought the Mabinogi was supposed to be 12th C., but the passage in Cantor sounds like the Mabinogi.

Barbara Tuchman wrote about the plague about 30 years ago in A Distant Mirror. I don't remember much of the book.

It is pretty obvious that the plague helped produce some of the conditions that lead to the Protestant Reformation as well.

Silly tidbit/useless trivia I retain for some unknown reason....

"Ashes, Ashes We All Fall Down" the wonderful childrens song I believe was either first sung or repeated from previous plagues during The Black Death. 'Rosie' is about the mark of the plague, 'posies' refers to how they tried to over power the scent in the air, and 'all fall down' is about everyone dying.

The idea of immunization is to give you a small dose of the disease to be conquered by your natural immune system. When I joined the national guard I got a smallpox inoculation (among others) and my arm blossomed. It was the first reaction that many doctors had seen. Could have been from the amount of Iroquois Blood I have.

Many of the diseases that have had the most debilitating effect have been ones to which we have not been exposed to. Hence smallpox was lethal to the American Indian. More Indians died from smallpox than the white man's bullets. Viruses not experienced by anyone have an odd habit of showing up and decimating a population. allegedly the AIDS virus and the Ebola virus came from the same cave in Africa according to the book "The Hot Zone".

Silly tidbit etc, Part 2: I have heard that the reason people say "(God) bless you" after you sneeze derives from one of those
European plagues or epidemics. A sneeze sugguested you were going to be a victim. -rjb-

Atishoo atishoo we all fall down (- dead) is how we say it

Ring around the Rosie, like all folk lore, exists in many forms. There is even at least one second verse that gives a happy ending.

The cows are in the meadow, eating buttercups
Lightning, Thunder,
We all jump up!

A long time ago, one of the Sunday Walt Disney shows examined the history behind many nursery rhymes.

Finally finished Norman Cantor. One page 185, are three big factual errors. Clumsily attempted to define a rift valley as a deep valley rather than a place where continental plates come together on land; called paleo physical anthropologist Donald Johansen "Grant Johannsen," and said Mary Leakey found foot prints of "the earliest man" leading a small horse!

And I have been trying unsuccessfully to get a job in publishing for the past five years!!!

ring a rosie is the corrupted version - the english version is ring a ring of roses - the marks of the plague

Not only did the Black Death kill people, it killed alot of people.