Wednesday, November 17, 2010
A team of scientists has be given permission to exhume Tycho Brahe’s body so that they can take samples of hair to test for the presence of mercury. They hope to determine Brahe’s cause of death, and clearly expect that cause to be mercury poisoning. This is the latest attempt by scientists to retro-diagnose historical diseases.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 11/17 at 10:30 PM
Monday, February 06, 2012
I wanted to see what happens when you feed a few plague tracts into Wordle and to think about whether or not it would be useful in my course on plagues and epidemics. While I’m not sure if it is useful, the results are interesting.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 02/06 at 01:40 PM
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
The latest case of plague in Oregon is, well, rather typical: man plays with rodent, gets bit by infected flea, contracts the plague. An aggressive round of antibiotics should make him healthy again. The moral of the story: don’t play with rodents.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 06/26 at 01:20 PM
Wednesday, September 05, 2012
The man who contracted the plague this past June is recovering, though he will probably lose some fingers and toes.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 09/05 at 11:30 AM
Tuesday, February 05, 2013
For at least half a millennium now authorities have tried to control panic during epidemics. Here are just a few of the early sixteenth century efforts to quell society’s fears during such outbreaks.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 02/05 at 09:30 AM
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