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Updated and translated extract from: Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Jenseits von Rom und Karl dem Großen. Aspekte der globalen Verflechtung in der langen Spätantike, 300-800 n. Chr. Vienna 2018. See also: https://www.dasanderemittelalter.net/news/the-microbiology-of-early-globalization/
2013 •
In a little over a decade, microbiologists have sequenced the genomes for all the major pathogens that cause human disease. They have also, together with bioarcheologists, developed techniques for identifying the presence of fragments of these pathogens in ancient remains. In other words, the investigative biomedical laboratory of the 19th century can now literally reach back into the past to tell us where specific pathogens were found. At the same time, genomics research has allowed the construction of phylogenies of various microorganisms, allowing us to reconstruct the “family trees” of pathogens. Just as global economics are creating a “flat earth” of interconnected markets, the “historicist sciences” are “flattening” our ability to study the history of human health and disease. From Paleolithic tuberculosis and malaria to medieval leprosy and plague to modern HIV and other emerging diseases, there is now some common basis for looking at disease processes and health-seeking behaviors across time and space. This presentation will provide an overview of how these investigative methods, coupled with and expanded by traditional historicist ones, can create a framework for a global history of health.
Since life on earth developed, parasitic microbes have thrived. Increases in host numbers, or the conquest of a new species, provides an opportunity for such a pathogen to enjoy, before host defense systems kick in, a similar upsurge in reproduction. Outbreaks ‒ caused by ‘endemic’ pathogens ‒ and epidemics ‒ caused by ‘novel’ pathogens ‒ have thus been creating chaos and destruction since prehistorical times. To study such (pre)historic epidemics, recent advances in the ancient DNA field, applied to both archeological and historical remains, have helped tremendously to elucidate the evolutionary trajectory of pathogens. These studies offered new and unexpected insights in the evolution of, for instance, smallpox virus, hepatitis B virus and the plague-causing bacterium Yersinia pestis. Furthermore, burial patterns and historical publications can help in tracking down ancient pathogens. Another source of information is our genome, where selective sweeps in immune-related genes relat...
Isis Critical Bibliography
Green - Global Health in a Semi-Globalized World: History of Infectious Diseases in the Medieval Period (2021)2021 •
In 2020, the *Isis Critical Bibliography*, published by the History of Science Society, embarked on a Pandemics special issue to gather together essay reviews and curated bibliographies on the historiographies of the world's pandemics. I was asked to contribute an essay on medieval pandemics. Realizing that the editors had not commissioned a contribution on the premodern New World, I submitted two essays. This essay was written to complement one on epidemic diseases present in the Americas and Oceania before and after Old World contact. Focusing on the Old World (Eurasia and Africa), the present essay had two main objectives: to explain why the entry of "palaeosciences" was transforming the field of infectious disease history, and to use the example of plague (cause of the Black Death) to show how findings from genetics were bringing new perspectives to the questions historians ask. Both essays argued for the need to frame analysis of pandemics within Global History. The editors, however, had no interest in my double contribution and did not even send the 2nd essay out to two readers with expertise in the pre-modern world. I thereupon withdrew both essays. The present essay (on plague) was massively rewritten and was published in 2022 as "A New Definition of the Black Death: Genetic Findings and Historical Interpretations,” De Medio Aevo 11, no. 2 (2022), 139-55, DOI: https://doi.org/10.5209/dmae.83788. I'm leaving this draft version here, however, in the event that it might be enlightening for graduate students to see something of the internal politics of how History of Science develops. I welcome comments via email (monica.h.green@gmail.com) or via Bluesky (@monicaMedHist.bsky.social).
The Medieval Globe
Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death, the inaugural issue of The Medieval Globe, 1, no. 1 (2014) - abstracts2014 •
In the past decade and a half, the findings of molecular microbiology have effected a transformation in our understanding the Black Death and its history. The question 'What was it?' has been decisively resolved in favor of the pathogen Yersinia pestis. Microbiological research has also been decisive in pointing toward the Tibetan-Qinghai Plateau as the probable site of the organism's geographic origin and, more tentatively, in suggesting some chronological parameters in which key phases of that evolution occurred. These developments have laid out a challenge for medievalists, who now need to test whether these new biological narratives can better inform our understandings of the Black Death (1346-1353) and the Second Plague Pandemic more broadly defined. It also lays out a challenge for anyone who wants to apply knowledge of the Black Death to the understanding of contemporary epidemics and (re)emerging diseases. This inaugural issue of The Medieval Globe brings together scholars from many disciplines, to begin to assess how new work in the genetics, entomology, and epidemiology of Yersinia pestis, as well as new insights from archeological research, can combine with humanistic methods to allow a rethinking of the Second Plague Pandemic and its historical significance. The contributors collectively demonstrate that this phenomenon was geographically broad, chronologically deep, and ecologically complex: that it likely involved most of Eurasia and North Africa (and possibly parts beyond); that it likely extended from the 13th to the 19th centuries; and that it almost certainly involved many more intermediate hosts than the rats normally considered in plague histories. They also demonstrate that humanistic analysis has never been more crucial to reconstructing the history of the impact of this disease: genetics may be uniquely qualified to trace the history of the pathogen, but the insights of history—both traditional modes (political, religious, cultural) and newer ones (environmental, climatic, post-colonial)— allow us to see how a single-celled organism became a force shaping nearly half the globe. This issue serves as a state-of-the-field summation for medievalists and for researchers studying the world’s most lethal diseases and their modern implications. It will also provide a methodological model for global historians of any period. It is available open-access at the following link: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medieval_globe/1/. The following link leads to the video of a symposium that was held at the University of Illinois in January 2015 to discuss the implications of the volume: https://mediaspace.illinois.edu/media/The+Black+Death+and+BeyondA+New+Research+at+the+Intersection+of+Science+and+the+Humanities/1_g1tg61l5.
The Medieval Globe
Monica H. Green, "Editor's Introduction to 'Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World'" (2014)2014 •
Extraction of genetic material of the causative organism of plague, Yersinia pestis, from the remains of persons who died during the Black Death has confirmed that pathogen’s role in one of the largest pandemics of human history. This then opens up historical research to investigations based on modern science, which has studied Yersinia pestis from a variety of perspectives, most importantly its evolutionary history and its complex ecology of transmission. The contributors to this special issue argue for the benefits of a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach to the many remaining mysteries associated with the plague’s geographical extent, rapid transmission, deadly outcomes, and persistence. Keywords: Yersinia pestis, Second Plague Pandemic, Afroeurasia, anti-Jewish violence, bioarchaeology, biological anthropology, microbiology, historical method. This essay introduced the inaugural issue of the newly launched journal, The Medieval Globe. The General editor of the journal is Carol Symes; the guest editor of this volume is Monica H. Green. To access all the individual essays as well as the full volume, go to: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medieval_globe/1/.
Review essay on Plague Hospitals: Public Health for the City in Early Modern Venice, by Jane Stevens Crawshaw; Plague and Public Health in Early Modern Seville, by Kristy Wilson Bowers; Expelling the Plague: The Health Office and the Implementation of Quarantine in Dubrovnik, 1377-1533, by Zlata Blažina Tomić and Vesna Blažina
Rivista Trimestrale Di Scienza Dell’Amministrazione 2:
Epidemics and pandemics in the history of humankind and how governments dealt with them A review from the Bronze Age to the Early Modern Age (2020)2020 •
This review offers an overview of several devastating historical epidemics and pandemics. The first pandemic ravaging the Middle East and Ancient Egypt was an unidentified "plague" in the late Bronze Age. The plague of Athens was apparently "only" a local epidemic but with fatal consequences for that ancient democracy. Great empires with well-developed trade routes seem to be very susceptible to rapid and devastating spreads as the Antonine Plague, the Plague of Cyprian and the Justinian Plague testify. The great Medieval plague wave in Europe was absolutely devastating, but for the first time it brought along with it substantial containment measures that are still being successfully used today (e.g. isolation, quarantine) as well as the seeds of the development of a new form of medical theory and practice. The blame game that can be observed in the current COVID-19 pandemic has also been seen in previous epidemics and pandemics. Particularly in the case of syphilis, its origin was often attributed to foreign countries. Finally, the paper comparatively stresses the historical importance of an early implementation of a lockdown-based approach as an effective form of controlling epidemic spreads. Riassunto. Le epidemie e le pandemie nella storia dell'umanità e la maniera tenuta dai governi nel gestirle. Una review dall'Età del Bronzo alla prima Età moderna Questa rassegna offre una panoramica su diverse devastanti epidemie e pandemie nella storia. La prima pandemia che ha devastato il Medio Oriente e l'antico Egitto è stata una "peste" non ancora identificata alla fine dell'Età del Bronzo. La Peste di Atene fu apparentemente "solo" un'epidemia locale, ma con conseguenze fatali per l'antica democrazia. Grandi imperi con vie commerciali ben sviluppate sembrano essere molto suscettibili alla rapida e devastante diffusione epidemica, come testimoniano la Peste Antonina, la Peste di Cipriano e la Peste di Giustiniano. La grande ondata epidemica di peste nell'Europa medievale si è rivelata assolutamente devastante, ma per la prima volta ha portato con sé sostanziali misure di contenimento che ancora oggi vengono utilizzate con successo (ad es. isolamento, quarantena) e lo sviluppo di una nuova forma di teoria e pratica medica. Il gioco dell'incolparsi vicendevolmente che si può osservare nell'attuale pandemia di COVID-19 può, inoltre, essere osservato anche nelle precedenti epidemie e pandemie. In particolare nel caso della sifilide, l'origine del morbo era spesso attribuita a nazioni straniere. L'articolo, infine, sottolinea in maniera comparativa l'importanza storica dell'applicazione precoce di un approccio basato sul confinamento quale forma di di efficace forma di controllo delle diffusioni epidemiche.
Popular Science article available here: https://sciencenordic.com/denmark-epidemic-history/epidemics-in-the-cradle-of-civilization/1758958
Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture
Yield and quality of early potato cultivars in relation to the use of glufosinate‐ammonium as desiccant2009 •
European Journal of Medicinal Plants
Safety and Efficacy of Prunus africana and Warburgia ugandensis Against Induced Asthma in BALB/c Mice2013 •
American Journal of Agricultural Economics
Timmer, C. Peter, Walter P. Falcon, and Scott R. Pearson. Food Policy Analysis , a World Bank publication. Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983, x + 301 pp. $@@‐@@25.00, $@@‐@@12.95 paper1984 •
2015 •
2013 •
Diabetology & Metabolic Syndrome
Probiotics ameliorate pioglitazone-associated bone loss in diabetic rats2020 •
Scientific reports
Performance modulation of α-MnO2 nanowires by crystal facet engineering2015 •
Histoire Sociale-social History
A choke of emotion, a great heart-leap": English-Canadian Tourists in Britain, 1880s-19142006 •
2021 •
Psychological Reports
Reliability and Validity of the Self-Report Family Content Scale2010 •
Journal of Business Innovation and Governance
Neuroscience for Understanding and Developing Sustainability: Neurosustainability2021 •
Infection, epidemiology and microbiology
High Incidence of MDR and XDR Pseudomonas aeruginosa Isolates Harboring blaGES, blaVEB, and blaPER Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lactamase Genes in Iran2022 •
American Journal of Therapeutics
Sleeve Gastrectomy and Wernicke Encephalopathy2017 •
2016 •