Illustration of the Black Death from the Toggenburg Bible, 1411.
A 32-year-old herdsman and his 37-year-old neighbor from a sparsely populated area of north-western China have died of pneumonic plague. 11 of the herdsman's relatives are also reported to have the disease.
In response, the local government has quarantined the 10,000 or so people who live in their town of Ziketan, near Xinghai in Qinghai province - and with good reason.
Pneumonic plague spreads through the air, making it easier to contract than bubonic plague, which requires that a person is bitten by an infected flea. -- BBC News & Med India
Unless antibiotic treatment is administered within 24 hours of infection, the mortality rate from pneumonic plague approaches 100%. -- Wikipedia
Pieter Bruegel's The Triumph of Death (c.1562) reflects the social upheaval and terror that followed the plague, which devastated medieval Europe. - Click image to enlarge.
4 comments:
Plague hits in China...
now that's serious..
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