Not Just the Plague

Abstract

Abstract This chapter describes two pandemics, separated by nearly a millennium, that raged through Asia and Europe in the 6th and 14th Centuries. The second plague pandemic, the Black Death, is better known than its predecessor, the Justinianic Plague. As the chapter relates, the causes of these pandemics were not known at the time, but both were spread along the Silk Roads from the deserts in Central Asia, through Constantinople, and then to Europe. It outlines the stories told about and explanations for both pandemics, which either are scarce or come from second-hand reports, and shows that because the cause was not known, preventative methods were largely ineffective, cruel, or even bizarre. Each of the two pandemics killed tens of millions of people–estimates of numbers vary widely. Finally, the chapter relates how the roles of insects as disease vectors were not understood until the 20th Century, and only then came the recognition that the plague pandemics differed and could not be called just the Plague.