Woody
Woody MegaDork
3/31/14 4:54 p.m.

I thought this was pretty interesting:

LONDON (AP) — You can learn a lot from a tooth.

Molars taken from skeletons unearthed by work on a new London railway line are revealing secrets of the medieval Black Death — and of its victims.

This week, Don Walker, an osteologist with the Museum of London, outlined the biography of one man whose ancient bones were found by construction workers under London's Charterhouse Square: He was breast-fed as a baby, moved to London from another part of England, had bad tooth decay in childhood, grew up to work as a laborer, and died in early adulthood from the bubonic plague that ravaged Europe in the 14th century.

The poor man's life was nasty, brutish and short, but his afterlife is long and illuminating.

"It's fantastic we can look in such detail at an individual who died 600 years ago," Walker said. "It's incredible, really."

(article continues)

http://www.sfgate.com/news/science/article/London-skeletons-reveal-secrets-of-the-Black-Death-5360322.php#src=fb

Hasbro
Hasbro Dork
3/31/14 6:05 p.m.

Interesting to note that they now think it was a pneumonic plague and not a bubonic plague. Meanwhile, there's an Ebola outbreak gearing up in Africa; http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-outbreak-guinea-unprecedented-epidemic-150950731.html?vp=1

foxtrapper
foxtrapper PowerDork
4/1/14 5:16 a.m.

I don't know about "they", but Dr Tim Brooks and a few others believe it to be pneumonic. It may well be, but I wouldn't take it as gospel just yet. Not that take a flea vector as gospel either mind you.

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