Plague Reading

Reading comprehension

Bubonic plague is innocent During the 20th century, experts believed that bubonic plague – a bacterial disease spread to humans by domestic rats – was responsible for the epidemics that devastated Europe after the Black Death in 1347, and for over 300 years. However, historical evidence suggests the existence of an infectious disease, spread person-to-person, and quite efficiently stopped by a quarantine period. In fact, this was the medical view until 1900. Two researchers at Liverpool University, Dr Susan Scott and Prof Christopher Duncan, have recently shown that the causative agent was not a bacterium but a virus, with unusual epidemiological characteristics. Scott and Duncan base their conclusions on modern techniques of epidemiology, molecular biology and computer modeling to the analysis of historical records.

The Black Death arrived in Sicily in 1347, and travelled rapidly to the north, reaching all Europe. The mortality was devastating: around 25 million people died, an estimated 25-75% of the European population. It was the beginning of the age of plagues, which lasted for over 300 years. In 1670, it suddenly, mysteriously – and thankfully – disappeared. The Black Death was immediately accepted as an infectious disease, spread person-to-person. Doctors and health authorities identified a 40-day quarantine period. This was strictly observed all over Europe for three centuries: the people of a community knew that they were safe when nobody died of plague for 40 days. When King Henry VIII decided to reduce the period, his decision became tragically ineffective and it had to be immediately reversed. The biology of bubonic plague was discovered at the end of the 19th century. Bubonic plague is still endemic in parts of Asia today and it is deadly, but usually treatable with modern medicine. From 1900, scientists generally accepted that it was the causative agent of Europe's 300-year malady.

In Biology of Plagues, Scott and Duncan show that Bubonic plague was falsely accused. The brown rat did not arrive in Europe until 1720 – fifty years after the plague disappeared – and quarantine measures are completely ineffective against bubonic plague. Scott and Duncan studied the mortality in individual families, and found a consistent period of 37-38 days between infection and inevitable death. The period had three stages: a latent period, of 10-12 days, an infectious period (with no symptoms) of 20-22 days, and finally a 5-day period showing symptoms before death. Therefore, a victim had 32 days to travel by foot, horseback or sea, carrying a deadly infection that he did not know about. This explains the 40-day quarantine period. And computer modelling techniques can show why a ‘typical' plague epidemic in England lasted 8-9 months. The authors decided to call it “haemorrhagic plague”, to distinguish it clearly from Bubonic plague. What was the cause of haemorrhagic plague? After an examination of the symptoms (particularly the red spots on a patient’s body) and primitive autopsy reports, Scott and Duncan suggest that it was possibly a form of filovirus, similar to Ebola. Could haemorrhagic plague return? If this happened, the long incubation period and modern transport would allow apparently healthy people to spread the disease rapidly all over the world. The mortality would be catastrophic. 1. Write if True or False a) Bubonic plague was the cause of the Black Death in 1347. b) There were many plagues in Europe between 1347 and 1670. c) We don’t know why the plagues disappeared after 1670. d) The 40-day quarantine period was a good remedy. e) An infected person immediately felt sick and died after five days.

2. Choose the correct option. According to the article… 1. A person caught “Black Death” from... a. bubonic fever. b. rats. c. another person. 2. The cause of the “Black Death” was… a. a bacterium. b. a virus. c. a molecular disease. 3. Which of these sentences is not true about the “Black Death”? a. Around 25 million people died of plague between 1347 and 1670. b. People generally observed the quarantine period of 40 days. c. King Henry VIII made a wrong decision about the plague. 4. Experts began to associate the European plague with Bubonic fever… a. immediately. b. at the end of the nineteenth century. c. fifty years after they disappeared. 5. Scott and Duncan don’t agree with the “Bubonic” theory because… a. there were no rats in Europe at the time. b. quarantine is a bad remedy to Bubonic plague. c. Bubonic fever shows symptoms only after 32 days. 3. Find a word or phrase which means: a. passed (paragraph 1) b. experts (paragraph 2) c. obeyed, followed (paragraph 4) d. periods (paragraph 6) e. permit (paragraph 8)