The discussion on the mythology thread (Greeks and Romans or Romans and Greeks) led me to consider writers who had lived through a plague, such as Sophocles and Chaucer.

Who are the notable others, I wonder?

Any help with this subject that is plaguing my imagination will be appreciated.

Best regards,
WordFlea

Boccaccio, Giovanni 1313-75 Plague in 1348

.Dictionary of Difficult Words - loimic
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A URL to Introduction to the Decameron - very long very tedious to read. The naughty stories are at Brown University, but some of them have been bowdlerized shamefully!

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/boccacio2.html

Petrarch 1304-74. The encyclopedia does not mention his writing about the plague, but the Laura he immortalized, died in the plague year 1348. Sounds as though there might be a story there.

Here is a URL about the many other times plague epidemics hit Europe:
http://www.beyond.fr/history/plague.html In one of the worst, cause was greedy merchants who wanted silk cargo on ship with known cases of plague inducing authorities to lift the quarantine.

Thucydides -- Greek historian of the 5th century BC. He lived through the great plague at Athens and wrote an account of it in his history. I think he may even have caught it but recovered, but I'm not sure. Nobody can identify what the plague was but I have heard a theory that it might have been the first outbreak of measles.

It's a tad too long to quote here, but you can find a translation of Thucydides's description of the plague at http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_thucydides_plague.htm

Bingley

Samuel Pepys lived through the second wave of the plague in England during the Restoration era. Don't remember offhand if he wrote much about it in the famous diary.

Bocaccio began The Decameron with a graphic account of the plague in Florence which is very worthwhile reading.

Daniel Defoe didn't live through it but his description of the Great Plague of 1665 is still a fascinating read:

http://www.mastertexts.com/Defoe_Daniel/A_Journal_of_the_Plague_Year/Index.htm

Bingley

There is a bevy of work about The Great Flu Pandemic of 1918, a plague that raced around the world killing 50 million. Don't know how many "name" writers of the time addressed the issue, but I recall a particulalry gut-wrenching journalisitic account of the pandemic in Philadelphia, the day to day fear and how they were literally piling the bodies in the streets. People tend to overlook this horrible plague due to the shadow of WWI.

50 million in the flu pandemic, Whitman? Incredible. I will definitely track down some information on this.

Thanks to all who have posted so far. I think a thematic unit built around the plague would be a good umbrella for studies (e.g., literary, writing, history, health) in high school.

Best regards,
WW

WWI flu figure I saw was 20 million, which is bad enough.

There waa a plague of books and articles written about it.

One of the very best books about epidemics is Hans Zinnser, Rats, Lice, and History. 1935

The 1918 influenza strain was remarkable in two regards that made it terrifying, beyond simply the death total. First, it had an unusually high mortality rate for an influenza (about 10%, as I recall. This however is far lower than the mortaility rate of such plagues as the Black Death). Second, and unlike almost all other influenza strains, its incidence was not principally among the very young, the very old, and the infirm. It principally struck otherwise-healthy young people of ages 18-30.

This particular pandemic took with it three of my four grandparents.

>It principally struck otherwise-healthy young people of ages 18-30 [about 10% mortality].

so the odds were still better than fighting in the trenches....

For more insight on this, WW, you might want to read Albert Camus' great novel, The Plague, about an outbreak that devastates the port city of Oran, Algeria and its psychological affects on the inhabitants there. Regarded by many as one of the top ten novels of the 20th century.

death total on the Great Flu Pandemic

I've seen this listed in various accounts at many different estimates, ranging from 18 to 80 million! After perusing material on it over the years I feel comfortable with the 50 mil figure. But, much like the death toll suffered by the Russians in WWII, now pushed upwards by many from 10-20 million to 40-50 million, I guess we'll never know for sure.

I've just come across this description of a sixth century AD plague as described by Procopius, who lived through it. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/542procopius-plague.html

Bingley

A very insightful and well-written read, Bingley! Thanks for the link. I'd be interested to get Dr. Bill's reaction to this. And I also encountered an unfamiliar word in the passage: batlling. It doesn't seem to be a typo for battling because the rest of the work is flawless, perhaps a variation in the spelling?...or could it be an obsolete medical term of some kind? Here's the usage:

So it was that in this disease there was no cause which came within the province of human reasoning; for in all cases the issue tended to be something unaccountable. For example, while some were helped by batlling, others were harmed in no less degree.

Dear Bingley: thanks for the link. I read it with great interest, because the writer had so much good sense, and was a good observer. There was no mention of rats or their fleas.The spread apparently did not run the course I read about years ago, with earliest cases having buboes with slow progression of the disease, and later cases being pneumonic with rapid spread and quick death. Hard to explain the erratic spread, with some escaping infection for a couple months.

Well, I had hoped to just skim that article--things like that make me feel ill--but the Wizard WO'N posed a puzzle, which I purported to pursue.
It could make sense, if it were a typo for battling: in the paragraph above, it is told how delirious people would throw themselves around and attempt to flee, and their caregivers would have to fight to restrain them. Just a thought.

>batlling

I read it as bathing. I have written to Prof. Halsall for clarification.

Bingley

One of the very best books about epidemics is Hans Zinnser, Rats, Lice, and History. 1935

Well, finally - someone's mentioned a book that I have! I'm also reminded of Camus' book La Peste (The Plague)

Should be interesting to read the verdict on battling, bathing, batlling and gang.

I read the Procopius account with great interest, the most sobering fact there having been the necessity of throwing bodies into towers from which tops had been removed. Also, interesting was his description of people who had been immoral, and becoming, instead, uncharacteristically righteous in sight of the plague. Once the threat had disappeared, he observed, they returned to their immoral habits. Thanks for the link, Bingley.

I wonder what the etymology of Procopius' name might be?

Best regards,
WW

For more insight on this, WW, you might want to read Albert Camus' great novel, The Plague,
about an outbreak that devastates the port city of Oran, Algeria and its psychological
affects on the inhabitants there. Regarded by many as one of the top ten novels of the 20th
century.

Just six posts up, Geoff!

I've had a reply from Paul Halsall. He said it was probably a scanning error and was most likely to be bathing, but suggested looking up Procopius's work in the Loeb edition to make sure. So, does anyone have access to a decent library?

Bingley

Dear Bingley: I found a site about Procopius, but get error message "server not found"
1.Procopius of Caesarea (490?-560?) - text of his "The Secret History," which concerns the
reign of the Roman emperor Justinian.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/procop-anec.html
More sites about: Authors > Nonfiction

.batlling

Thanks for investigating this, Bingley. Bathing makes more sense than any of the other suppositions. No substantiating citation yet, though.

I looked up the Procopius passage in the Loeb edition in Blackwell's in Oxford. It has bathing. I suppose I should have checked the Greek text, but I took the Loeb translator's word for it as it makes sense in the context.

Bingley

I picked up a book about pandemics while I was in the States for $1 at a bookshop in Canyon, Texas. And I left it in a motel somewhere between there and Atlanta.

However, it did discuss the plague of Athens in some detail. Chicken pox, measles, mumps and a number of other now well-known and rarely-fatal diseases (including a virulent form of thrush) were considered and rejected for various reasons. The only thing the research quoted in the book seems to agree on for certain is that it wasn't bubonic plague. And I seem to remember a figure of 20-25 million being given for the 1918 Influenza Epidemic, although I don't believe the author stated that as a definitive range. It was, rather a conservative estimate. Could have been higher.