Plague part deux

[crazy canuck]

I saw a very interesting show on PBS last night called the Black Death.

The premise of the show was that the investigators were trying to determine why, given the high mortality rate of those infected, some people who had symptoms of the plague recovered and why some who were in close proximity to the plague (ie quarantined with family members) did not contract the disease at all.

The conclusion - I won't take you through all the evidence for it - is that there is a genetic mutation called delta (I think 23) which acts to block the ability of the disease bacteria to enter the white blood cells (which is the way the plague attacked the body) and therefore allowed the carrier of the mutation to be immune to the effects of the disease.

For complete immunity the mutation had to be passed on by both parents. Those who had partial immunity had the mutation passed on by only one parent.

In game terms a striking part of the research was that the long held belief that poverty and cramped living quarters were factors which contributed to the likelyhood that someone would contract and die from the plague is wrong. The research showed (by building a relational database which cross referenced social status, locations and incomes of the victims of the plague in London) seems to show that those factors had no effect.

People survived either because they were not exposed or because when exposed they had this particular mutation.

Going a little off topic, this mututation is only found in populations from Europe where the plague occured and their descendents. No trace of it was found in Asia, Africa or the Indian Subcontinent.
The modern significanse of the research is that the Aids virus has been found to enter the white blood cell in the same way as the Plague and people that have the mutation from both parents are immune from AIDS. Those groups that do not have the mutation have no protection at all. This to some extent may explain why Africa has been hit so hard by AIDS.

Getting back to the game, I suppose that the way in which Plague events should be scripted (assuming there are such events) is that both rich and poor, rural and urban will all be effected if exposed. The only real chance of avoiding certain death was having the genetic mutation - as time passed those who survived passed on their genetic code so that by the time the last of the plagues had finished the percentage of the population with the mutation is thought to be quite high.

 

[Alexandru H.]

Well, AFAIK, the world before the great plague was a pretty wealthy world... in fact the 14th century will prove one of the worse periods in European history (great plague, the war between France and England, the free companies, popular uprisings in France, England, Flanders, Italy)

But the genetical stuff is pretty 20th century for the purposes of CK....

 

[crazy canuck]

Originally posted by Alexandru H.
Well, AFAIK, the world before the great plague was a pretty wealthy world... in fact the 14th century will prove one of the worse periods in European history (great plague, the war between France and England, the free companies, popular uprisings in France, England, Flanders, Italy)

But the genetical stuff is pretty 20th century for the purposes of CK....

When I was talking about wealth, I meant in relative terms. ie the traditional theory proposed that the poorer a person was the the more cramped their living conditions the more prone they were to dieing from the plague.

I thought it might be helpful to point out that affluence and living conditions had little to do with whether or not a person got infected and died. It turns out that it was a matter of genetics and in particular whether a person had the necessary genetic mutation to survive.

 

[Winkelried]

Originally posted by crazy canuck
When I was talking about wealth, I meant in relative terms. ie the traditional theory proposed that the poorer a person was the the more cramped their living conditions the more prone they were to dieing from the plague.

I thought it might be helpful to point out that affluence and living conditions had little to do with whether or not a person got infected and died. It turns out that it was a matter of genetics and in particular whether a person had the necessary genetic mutation to survive.

In other words a lottery.

 

[HisMajestyBOB]

If the player marries two people who are both immune to the plague, their child will also be immune to the plague?
Would be quite cool if it was in, but the player's knowledge of genetics would be a bit of an advantage, as well as ahistorical

 

[crazy canuck]

Originally posted by HisMajestyBOB
If the player marries two people who are both immune to the plague, their child will also be immune to the plague?
Would be quite cool if it was in, but the player's knowledge of genetics would be a bit of an advantage, as well as ahistorical

Don't know the answer to the genetic question. The documentary implied that for a child to be immune to parents in each generation had to have the mutation.

Of course in game terms no one would know about this. But After successive years of plague the chances of each parent having the mutation would go up dramatically because most everyone else will have been killed off.

Not knowing anything about the mechanics of the game I have no idea how this piece of info could be implemented. But since the board is so dead I thought it might be helpful to start some new discussion.

 

[Faeelin]

The PBS said the influenza epidemic of 1918 started in kansas from burning pig manure.

Which is, essentially, manure.

 

[unmerged(8913)]

Those are some very interesting theories . . . its just too bad that, since Sergei no longer graces our board with his presence, it will have no impact on the game whatsoever....

 

[unmerged(12746)]

Originally posted by Marcus Valerius
Those are some very interesting theories . . . its just too bad that, since Sergei no longer graces our board with his presence, it will have no impact on the game whatsoever....

Hopefully this is speculation and not fact, if the Black Plaque isnt in a medievil period game it would be incomplete.

Last year I read a pretty decent book called "In the wake of the plaque" by Norman Cantor. It dosent deal so much with the causes but the social and economic impacts the plague had. Cantor claims that the plaque reached such monumental proportions due to an outbreak of anthrax through tarnished meat due to the number of cases of plaque reported where the victims didnt have buboes.

The symptoms start the same, fevor flu like symptoms but the buboes, the pustual inflimations are what distinguishes the two. Noting particularly that in england 90 percent of the population lived in rural hamlets and the spread of anthrax would be easier to explain the percentage of deaths due the the plaque being transmitted by fleas. Its possible but Cantor didnt think it logical that hamlet A 60 miles from any major city would get fleas infected with plaque. It just didnt have the means to travel to romote places, and in England particularly the remote areas were hit just as hard.

At this time the population of London wasnt more then 75,000 people and York, Bristol, and Lincoln maybe 10k. The plague moved from person to person via fleas and obviously the denser the population (french cities, Italian Ports) the higher the mortality rate.

My point is I dont think its strictly the "bubonic" plaque, neither does the author I reference, and at least it can be argued logicially that England suffered something more then the plaque outbreak. So I dont know that genetics can play a role in contracting it or not, in game terms. It has to be an event that dosent have a descrimintory basis because of the shear numbers of people affected for all classes. Its possible sure but in game terms I dont think there is going to be any way to immune a char from the plaque unless there is some magic item or event, and then we get into the realm of RPG....

Lets hope the plaque is in, its nasty and has a dramatic effect on the social political standings of the dynasties whos lands it hits, as it did historically.

 

[crazy canuck]

Odin,

The test village that the researchers used for their study was a remote English village. They were interested in it because the when symptoms of the plague were first reported the whole village was quarantined. Food was dropped off at the edge of village but no contact was had with the villagers for over one year. The astonishing thing was that most of the villagers had survived.

It was a good place to investigate from a genetic point of view because it was isolated and many of the descendents of the original survivors still lived there.

The researches were concerned though that the survival rate could be explained by the fact that the villagers had not been infected with the plague at all but instead had been effected by anthrax. In order to eliminate that possibility they searched the records to determine the levels of life stock during the period. If the culprit had been anthrax then the livestock would have been devestated. However, there was no decline in the level of livestock and so the researchers concluded that the symptoms were related to the plague and not anthrax.

I wonder if anyone has done a wider anaysis of the livestock levels in rest of England or even Western Europe to determine the validity of the anthrax theory.

 

[unmerged(12746)]

Originally posted by crazy canuck
Odin,

The test village that the researchers used for their study was a remote English village. They were interested in it because the when symptoms of the plague were first reported the whole village was quarantined. Food was dropped off at the edge of village but no contact was had with the villagers for over one year. The astonishing thing was that most of the villagers had survived.

It was a good place to investigate from a genetic point of view because it was isolated and many of the descendents of the original survivors still lived there.

The researches were concerned though that the survival rate could be explained by the fact that the villagers had not been infected with the plague at all but instead had been effected by anthrax. In order to eliminate that possibility they searched the records to determine the levels of life stock during the period. If the culprit had been anthrax then the livestock would have been devestated. However, there was no decline in the level of livestock and so the researchers concluded that the symptoms were related to the plague and not anthrax.

I wonder if anyone has done a wider anaysis of the livestock levels in rest of England or even Western Europe to determine the validity of the anthrax theory.

Well that eliminates my premise as it pertains to your post. I have the book at home and the author references some source material its packed away somewhere I will dig it out when I have the time. There is no doubt the Bubonic Plaque happened, did somethng elese happen in conjunction? who knows.

What I do know is I want some representation of the plaque in the game, and I want it to be a potential game altering event.

 

[unmerged(8913)]

Originally posted by Odin1970
Hopefully this is speculation and not fact, if the Black Plaque isnt in a medievil period game it would be incomplete.

Sorry, I wasn't specific enough....

I meant that since Sergei no longer visits this board, I see little reason to think that any theory posted here about how the black plague should be implemented will have any impact on the game. I certainly hope something about the plague would be in the game!

 

[crazy canuck]

Originally posted by Odin1970
What I do know is I want some representation of the plaque in the game, and I want it to be a potential game altering event.

Absolute agreement here.