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A fascinating work of detective history, The Black Death traces the causes and far-reaching consequences of this infamous outbreak of plague that spread across the continent of Europe from 1347 to 1351. Drawing on sources as diverse as monastic manuscripts and dendrochronological studies (which measure growth rings in trees), historian Robert S. Gottfried demonstrates how a bacillus transmitted by rat fleas brought on an ecological reign of terror—killing one European in three, wiping out entire villages and towns, and rocking the foundation of medieval society and civilization.
Samuel K. Cohn, Jr., [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005LNKI5S/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B005LNKI5S&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=c1568314c7dae6223d777af9f310e1fc Cultures of Plague: Medical Thinking at the end of the Renaissance]By Samuel K. Cohn, Jr.
Cultures of Plague opens a new chapter in the history of medicine. Neither the plague nor the ideas it stimulated were static, fixed in a timeless Galenic vacuum over five centuries, as historians and scientists commonly assume. As plague evolved in its pathology, modes of transmission, and the social characteristics of its victims, so too did medical thinking about plague develop.