3 ms·
"...is only 3 percent different from the 1918 Spanish flu, which likely killed more people than the Black Death." Well, Spanish flu killed, tops, 5% of world p
by RBerenguel 12y ago
"...is only 3 percent different from the 1918 Spanish flu, which likely killed more people than the Black Death."
Well, Spanish flu killed, tops, 5% of world population, whereas Black Death is likely to have killed at least 20% of the world population. I think this is more significant than 100 million vs ~90 million.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- msane 12y agoObviously that is the point.
- hga 12y agoNote that between these two events we, oh, learned the germ theory of disease, and hypothesized the rat -> flea -> human path of plague transmission; 1918 was pre-antibiotics but we'd still learned a whole bunch of things that radically improved medicine, public health, etc. Modern, or circa 1918 (after Typhoid Mary was permanently quarantined) public health measures alone could likely keep a plague epidemic from taking such a huge percentage of people. Note researchers are doing vaguely similar sorts of things WRT to the Black Death: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death#DNA_evidence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death#DNA_evidence
- amckenna 12y agoI think the comparison was to draw attention to just how deadly the Spanish Flu was. In history class we were taught about the Black Death as this huge and earth shattering pandemic, yet we hear nothing about the Spanish Flu. A lot of people don't realize just how deadly it was.