Fear always brings out the best in people...

In 1900, San Francisco’s Chinatown was quarantined with barbed wire fences when a Chinese laborer was suspected to have died of Bubonic plague.

While the cause of death was still undetermined, a cordon was placed around Chinatown, and no Chinese American was allowed to leave the area bounded by California, Kearny, Broadway, and Stockton streets. This restricted the freedom of movement of people, some of whom were American citizens. It caused them many hardships, for they had difficulty in obtaining goods and services from people outside Chinatown. There was a shortage of food, and prices increased sharply. Chinese American businessmen faced a loss of income, and workers a loss of wages. After three and a half months, it was found that there were no cases of bubonic plague within Chinatown. This lengthy quarantine of Chinatown was motivated more by racist images of Chinese as carriers of disease than by actual evidence of the presence of bubonic plague. 

Still, at least they didn't accidentally  burn the area to the ground.

Bubonic Plague video classics

It's now traditional to open the Bubonic Plague week with these two Bubonic Plague video classics.

The always popular John Stewart and and an interesting depiction of medieval flagellants in a German rock video.

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Sample midterm

I uploaded a sample midterm. It's also available via the links to the right.

Send in the cats

I was idly wondering whether any other disease outbreaks had been solved by airlifting cats when I came across this strangely parallel story from Borneo - at catdrop.com of course.

The story is that in 1959 DDT was being sprayed to reduce malaria in Borneo. This caused the death of cats in some areas where DDT was sprayed indoors. This then led to local outbreaks of bubonic plague. A “cat drop” occurred to replenish the local cat population and solve the bubonic plague problem by having them kill the booming rat population.

The website examines the truth behind this tale and digs up an actual Operations Record Book from the Royal Air Force which did indeed carry out at least one cat drop in a remote region. In this case twenty cats were dropped in special baskets. The record book notes that a reply was received saying “all cats safe and much appreciated.”

Actually if you look at the log book it says something much better:

That question mark is intriguing. Is there a chance that the locals were mystified as to why the RAF had just dropped a load of cats on them?

The Illustrious Dead

If you'd like to read more about how Typhus fever destroyed Napoleon's ambition then there's a recent book that makes the case - Stephan Talty's 'The illustrious dead':

When Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812, typhus ravaged his army, killing hundreds of thousands and ensuring his defeat, according to this breathless combination of military and medical history. After summarizing the havoc this disease wreaked on earlier armies and sketching Napoleon's career, the book describes his invasion of Russia with more than 600,000 men. Almost immediately typhus struck. Infected lice excrete the microbe in their feces, and victims acquire the disease by scratching the itchy bite. Talty describes the effects in graphic detail: severe headache, high fever, delirium, generalized pain and a spotty rash. Death may take weeks, and fatalities approached 100% among NapoleonÖs increasingly debilitated, filthy, half-starved soldiers. Talty makes a good case that it was typhus, not General Winter, that crushed Napoleon. Readers should look elsewhere for authoritative histories of NapoleonÖs wars and of infectious diseases, but Talty delivers a breezy, popular account of a gruesome campaign, emphasizing the equally gruesome epidemic that accompanied it.  (Publisher's Weekly review).

I haven't read this one but I think I'll add it to my reading list.

for something a little more immediately accessible you can read Insects,disease, and military history: the Napoleonic campaigns and historical perception. The version online is adapted from a paper of the same name in the American Entomologist. (1995)  41:147-160.

CLD or PLDS

That is, Chronic Lyme Disease or Post Lyme Disease Syndrome?



That's just the trailer, you can watch the longer reports here:
Part I 
Part II

The reports are quite sympathetic to sufferers who are clearly suffering from something but it isn't any clearer whether they are suffering from an undetectable Lyme infection, an immune response to an old infection or something else.

Don't click off the video at the end. Big 'Ol Fish comes on. It's awesome.

Tick removal

Many people seem to have heard of one or other supposed foolproof way to remove ticks. None of them seem to work very well though, or be any better than simply pulling the tick out. At least not according to 'Evaluation of five popular methods for tick removal' by Glen Needham from the Acarology laboratory at Ohio State.

It is recommended that the tick be grasped as close to the skin as possible with curved forceps; if these are not available, use tweezers or protected fingers. Pull straight up with steady even pressure. If cement or mouthparts remain, then extract if that is practical. Disinfect bite site before and after tick removal.

Commercial tools that function in this manner may make the task slightly easier.

Here's a video guide to removing ticks from the University of Rhode Island's TickEncounter Resource Center.