Controlling grain prices and de-controlling bubonic plague

Abstract

I have long been fascinated by the dramatic and mysterious rise and fall of bubonic plague. This interest was intensified in 1976 by William H. McNeill's stimulating study of Plagues and Peoples. My inspiration for this article, however, took the form of a news report that a man had been killed by the explosion of the gasoline he had stored in his garage during the late, unlamented gasoline shortage in the spring of 1979. If price controls were capable of causing tragedies like this, could they also have magnified or caused plague epidemics? Briefly stated the hypothesis I developed runs as follows: government intervention in grain markets increases the likelihood of famine and food shortages; consumers respond by holding larger stocks of grain in their homes; attracted by the food, rats move into ordinary homes and multiply; the dispersal and enlargement of the rat and rat-flea populations increases the likelihood that an isolated case of plague will trigger a general conflagration. Given the limitations of the data, I saw no way to do a rigorous statistical study of the matter. The only feasible research strategy was to consider those plague epidemics for which I could locate information on government policies. Taken as a whole the evidence provided by this subset of 'case studies' suggests that governmental grain market policies may very well. be responsible for both the onset and disappearance of bubonic plague epidemics. This is not to suggest that such government interventions explain all past epidemics. The present study does not undertake the immense task of developing and testing a truly general model of bubonic plague epidemics taking into account a multitude of factors including especially war, population dispersion, ease of communication, diet and health standards. Admittedly, then, this essay is speculative and tentative, a ftrst attempt to explore the plague literature for many times and places. Its redeeming virtue is that it puts forwar d and offers supporting evidence for a fruitful new hypothesis for solving what has been a major puzzle to plague epidemiologists, demographers and economic historians.