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DNA Confirms Cause of 1665 London's Great Plague (bbc.com)
Slashdot reader JThaddeus writes: The BBC reports that a 17th-century mass grave uncovered in London confirms the identity of the bacteria responsible for the Great Plague of 1665-1666. "Testing in Germany confirmed the presence of DNA from the Yersinia pestis bacterium -- the agent that causes bubonic plague -- rather than another pathogen." The grave contains approximately 3,500 skeletons... Teeth were removed from some of the skulls, and their pulp tested at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. Positive results were found in 5 of 20 individuals tested.
"To reassure anyone worried whether plague bacterium was released from the excavation work or scientific analysis, it doesn't survive in the ground," reports the BBC. The 3,500 graves represent roughly 3.5% of London's 100,000 victims of the Great Plague -- one-quarter of the city's entire population.
"To reassure anyone worried whether plague bacterium was released from the excavation work or scientific analysis, it doesn't survive in the ground," reports the BBC. The 3,500 graves represent roughly 3.5% of London's 100,000 victims of the Great Plague -- one-quarter of the city's entire population.
The thing to reassure people of is the fact the bubonic plague is treatable now unlike back then not that it can't live in the ground as that is a fairly pointless reassurance as the bacteria is still very much alive and well in the world. It still occasionally raises its head with outbreaks and results in 100+ deaths a year.
At what point are we allowed to dig up graves? After 100 years? 200 years? There are some massive cemeteries near me on land that could be repurposed rather than wasted.
re-purpose them? that's some serious bollocks.. Here in Edinburgh, Scotland we STILL have "plague pits" as does EVERY town and city in Scotland.
looking at Edinburgh you will see strange wee strips of land around the town and suburbs which are free ffrom housing and usually turned into gardens and fenced off.
dog down far enough and you'll hit bone, lots of bone from dead people who died of the plague.
These are NOT and never ill be dug up because....THE PLAGUE CAN LIE DORMANT FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS and when you disturb that mass grave you are in for mass trouble.
They also used plague pits for Typhus and anthrax outbreak victims.. basically any mass lergy and you ended up in a plague pit when you died. so these areas are NEVER and will NEVER be built upon.
BTW it takes a special kind of cocksucker to want to dug up a grave, move bodies and build upon a grave site.
tell that to the City environment guys who shut us down quicker than Milo Yiannopolis shuts down a 3rd wave feminist! :-)
As I also mentioned... those same plague pits were also commonly used to typhus outbreak,smallpox, anthrax and any other mass lergy that happened.. everyone went into mass graves.
Please feel free to phone the City of Edinburgh council Environment Dept to argue it out if you like.. +44 (0)131-200-2000 and ask them if it's ok to dig any areas of any of the plague pits in the city....
What's this obsession with old bones?
The people are gone. Those who mourned them are gone. Burn the remains and let vegetation reclaim the minerals.
Prairie dogs didn't carry plague until ranchers started using it to kill prairie dogs. So kind of poetic justice that they give it right back.