London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

The outbreak of bubonic plague recently in New York would not have hit the headlines before 11 September, and should not cause alarm now, according to Professor Sam Cohn, author of The Black Death Transformed: Disease and Culture in Early Renaissance Europe, who is speaking at the School on 5 December.

The disease, which is a rat disease and, transmitted by fleas, cannot spread from humans to the rat population, which means once it reaches humans, it is a 'biological dead-end'; nor does it spread readily from person to person even in its rare pneumonic form.

Had the two cases in the States been the Black Death, of which we saw a major epidemic in the Middle Ages and with which, wrongly, bubonic plague is often confused and to which it bears little resemblance, it would have been a different story, and a cause for serious concern.

To gain an understanding of relative dangers of 'plagues', both ancient and modern, come along and hear Professor Samuel K Cohn speak at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine tonight.

The Epidemiology of the Black Death: Europe, 1348-1450
Speaker: Professor Samuel K Cohn, University of Glasgow
Thursday 5th December 2002 at 5.15 pm, Room 5, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WC1.

Ends.