8. Defining Feature 2: Inverse Correlation Between Mortality Rate And Population Density

Abstract

In this chapter it has been empirically shown at a high level of tenability that a mainly inverse correlation between levels of mortality and population density in epidemics of bubonic plague is an inherent, historically stable and unique property of this disease. Scott and Duncan compare endemic bubonic plague with epidemic plague, actually the largest plague epidemic ever to visit humankind called the Black Death. The scientific and methodological point of epidemiological principle is that there is systematic co-variation between mortality rates and population density. This is the reason for considering Scott's and Duncan's use of the word indiscriminate to be unscientific, since the term implies that bubonic plague spreads in an erratic, haphazard, random or fortuitous manner and does not spread according to systemic structures. Sweating sickness was a disease producing higher mortality rates in human habitats of small population density and vice versa.Keywords: inverse correlation; mortality rate; population density; sweating sickness