A new Black Death?

[Cash]

While doing some research on the Black Death for a separate project, the question occurred to me: Why hasn't there been a new disease to rival the casualties and social disintegration caused by the Black Death in the 600 years since it peaked in Europe?

Which led to the next question: What if one had arisen? By the 20th Century medicine had advanced to the point where a new BD-level epidemic would be less likely, but what if a disease had appeared out of the villages of southeast China (a super bird flu?) or the jungles of Africa (airborne Ebola or a new strain of viral hemorrhagic fever?) in, say, 1820? Like the Black Death, the vector is something superficially innocuous, such as birds or rat fleas. What are the effects on the British Empire, the expanding United States, the Ottoman Empire? Are inventions like railroad networks, telegraph, and the Internet butterflied away, delayed, or accelerated?

Although I can't recall one at the moment, it seems unlikely this idea hasn't been explored here before. Unfortunately, the Search function doesn't seem to working for me right now. Is there the germ of a book idea here?

 

[TapReflex]

If it is a gastrointestinal disease or a disease common in feces or other bodily fluids, ironically, like Polio, it will probably strike the upper classes in more prolific numbers. In the surviving Great Britain, England will be even smaller than it's colonies, and likely independence will be declared earlier (with a same story in France, Spain, and the other powers with colonies.)
This will lead to revolutions in those colonies, with a rapid turnover of failing governments.

In the United States and Ottoman empire, death is a bit more indiscriminate, with urban elite suffering the most, and sporadic rural cases.

If it is an airborne disease, it will of course be indiscriminate of poor or wealthy. Although the similar story of colonies being larger in population than their ruling countries. Likely, Rural communities will become like the ones of the BD: Killing those who look like they are sick outside the Town.

Likely, this plague will lead to a more rapid industrialization, likely in a country in Great Britain's Shadow. I'd suspect Germany, India, or even the United States would be such a place that will see the modernization of the world.

 

[twovultures]

My own timeline "The American Stinky Pig" will eventually explore the effects of post-Black Death plagues in the old world (but that's really a side effect of the main focus, which is more advanced Native American civilizations).

Going by the effects of the black plague, I think it's fair to say that technological advances will be slowed down by drops in population and social disruption. However, writing ensures that knowledge is preserved and can be built on in the future despite the disruption.
Also, as the population of the world grows larger, diseases will have progressively less and less impact on the population meaning that second black plagues might have less of an effect. In a society of one million the death of half a million is a collapse. In a society of ten million, the death of half a million is a disaster but nothing society can't cope with in the long run.

 

[Cash]

My own timeline "The American Stinky Pig" will eventually explore the effects of post-Black Death plagues in the old world (but that's really a side effect of the main focus, which is more advanced Native American civilizations).

Going by the effects of the black plague, I think it's fair to say that technological advances will be slowed down by drops in population and social disruption. However, writing ensures that knowledge is preserved and can be built on in the future despite the disruption.
Also, as the population of the world grows larger, diseases will have progressively less and less impact on the population meaning that second black plagues might have less of an effect. In a society of one million the death of half a million is a collapse. In a society of ten million, the death of half a million is a disaster but nothing society can't cope with in the long run.

That assumes that the death toll would be identical no matter what the population is. But the Black Death had a mortality rate of 30-60 percent in Europe, and the total world population was estimated to have dropped from about 450 million to 350 million to 375 million by 1400. The US population of 9,638,000 in 1820 would have been reduced to 3-6 million in a similar scenario. The United Kingdom population (including Ireland) would have dropped from more than 21 million to 7 to 14 million.

A population decline that dramatic, especially if the cities are hit harder than the countryside, has got to leave a mark.

 

[twovultures]

A population decline that dramatic, especially if the cities are hit harder than the countryside, has got to leave a mark.

True, but a larger population means more redundancy in leadership and skilled people. And depending on how that population is spread, it could mean less overall people infected so even a very high mortality right could be less damaging.

 

[Fiver]

You might want to take a look at information on the 1918 influenza pandemic.

 

[Cash]

You might want to take a look at information on the 1918 influenza pandemic.

I'm familiar with the influenza pandemic, but the scenario I'm positing would have a much larger mortality rate in a less mobile society with fewer means of communication.

I'm persuaded by Twovultures' comment about redundancy in skills and leadership. A town with three blacksmiths might lose only one of them, for example. One aspect I'm looking at is the westward expansion of the United States. 1820 would be after the Louisiana Purchase but before the Trail of Tears. A general pandemic of Black Death proportions would likely have more impact in the cities than in rural or frontier regions, so I'm wondering if perhaps Native American populations, particularly in the Plains and West, might come out of the event in relatively better shape than the more settled parts of the United States, for example.

 

[DuQuense]

but what if a disease had appeared out of the villages of southeast China (a super bird flu?) or the jungles of Africa (airborne Ebola or a new strain of viral hemorrhagic fever?) in, say, 1820?

IIRC the BD devastated China, worse than it did Europe.

The Disease has to have either - A long enuff incubation period to allow it it be spread world wide -- or the host animal has to be spread around before the disease outbreak.
There was a fad around this time, for Monkeys as Pets.

Several dozen monkeys sold in the ports around Europe, without the X that keep the Virus in Check, the Virus jumps the Specie Barrier, and begins to spread. Fleas, Lice, Bedbugs, etc.

 

[Typo]

I'm familiar with the influenza pandemic, but the scenario I'm positing would have a much larger mortality rate in a less mobile society with fewer means of communication.

I'm persuaded by Twovultures' comment about redundancy in skills and leadership. A town with three blacksmiths might lose only one of them, for example. One aspect I'm looking at is the westward expansion of the United States. 1820 would be after the Louisiana Purchase but before the Trail of Tears. A general pandemic of Black Death proportions would likely have more impact in the cities than in rural or frontier regions, so I'm wondering if perhaps Native American populations, particularly in the Plains and West, might come out of the event in relatively better shape than the more settled parts of the United States, for example.

One of the key factors in the spreading the plague/black death is in the general malnutrition of the population as well as the lack of hygiene. Given the better conditions in the US by 1820 I'm not so sure such a devastating plague would be possible.

 

[mrmandias]

American Indians may not do much better in this TL.

The American frontier types were often more savage and more genocidal than the organized government, and they will have proportionally greater political power if the American cities are knocked back a bit. American settlers were something like the Tukish ghazis.

 

[Cash]

American Indians may not do much better in this TL.

The American frontier types were often more savage and more genocidal than the organized government, and they will have proportionally greater political power if the American cities are knocked back a bit. American settlers were something like the Tukish ghazis.

No argument from me on that point, but in 1820 there weren't that many American settlers west of the Mississippi. Much of the Ohio River Valley was largely unsettled frontier. Even Chicago is only a small military post called Fort Dearborn. (And I'm not stuck on 1820 for any particular reason. It was the year of the Missouri Compromise.) That's the basis for my thinking that the Indians west of the Mississippi might come out the other side of this plague in better shape than the settled portions of the US.

 

[cclittle]

Aids

Influenza has been mentioned. What about Aquired Imunie Deficency Syndrome?

 

[TapReflex]

Influenza has been mentioned. What about Aquired Imunie Deficency Syndrome?

Unless AIDS becomes communicable by insect vectors, you won't likely have a signifigant epidemic. Drug Addicts and 'Unsafe' Sex are the most likely to spread the disease, and seeing as hypodermic needles and non-vaginal sex aren't common in those days, The only route I could see it going into the widespread population is with the doctor's devices (those were grizzly at best).
You'd likely see it as a 'Wartime' disease: the disease is spread by the soldiers coming together and homogenizing blood and waste and food.

 

[Typo]

Unless AIDS becomes communicable by insect vectors, you won't likely have a signifigant epidemic. Drug Addicts and 'Unsafe' Sex are the most likely to spread the disease, and seeing as hypodermic needles and non-vaginal sex aren't common in those days, The only route I could see it going into the widespread population is with the doctor's devices (those were grizzly at best).
You'd likely see it as a 'Wartime' disease: the disease is spread by the soldiers coming together and homogenizing blood and waste and food.

True, but what if you get AIDS in an era before medical science was so advanced?

 

[Tobit]

True, but what if you get AIDS in an era before medical science was so advanced?

It would have a similar effect as to syphilis did except more deadly, but I don't think mass infection would be possible. Black plague was successful because it was carried by fleas on rats which were everywhere back then. Smallpox was carried by animals that were introduced to the Americas, and hence spread it far faster than human contact could.

Wienerblut is right, it won't work unless it carried by insects.

 

[TapReflex]

It would have a similar effect as to syphilis did except more deadly, but I don't think mass infection would be possible. Black plague was successful because it was carried by fleas on rats which were everywhere back then. Smallpox was carried by animals that were introduced to the Americas, and hence spread it far faster than human contact could.

Wienerblut is right, it won't work unless it carried by insects.

Even insects have a down part: You can't get tiger Mosquitoes in Great Britain, or Deer Tick in Africa(although they do have many other ticks).
The animal vector's limits also limit the disease for the most part. You wouldn't see insectborne AIDs in London, New York, or Moscow.

 

[Typo]

It would have a similar effect as to syphilis did except more deadly, but I don't think mass infection would be possible. Black plague was successful because it was carried by fleas on rats which were everywhere back then. Smallpox was carried by animals that were introduced to the Americas, and hence spread it far faster than human contact could.

Wienerblut is right, it won't work unless it carried by insects.

How did AIDS get to be so big of a problem in Africa then?

 

[Tobit]

How did AIDS get to be so big of a problem in Africa then?

Because there is a lot of human movement in modern day Africa. Due to modern warfare entire ethnicities are uprooted and made into refugees. Populations are a lot bigger in modern day Africa than pre-modern Europe, and transportation has improved too.

Anyways AIDs when compared with other diseases is not the major killer in Africa. It is not a black plague there.

 

[TapReflex]

How did AIDS get to be so big of a problem in Africa then?

War-rape is quite common in Central Africa, as well as sexual-slavery.
From there, it went with the soldiers, until refugees brought it eslewhere, notably Southern Africa.

Sexual slaves and sex tourism brought it to the Western World. Men who might've slept with HIV positive women brought it to China, The Western World, and South America.

 

[Bavarian Raven]

-rape is quite common in Central Africa, as well as sexual-slavery.
From there, it went with the soldiers, until refugees brought it eslewhere, notably Southern Africa.

Sexual slaves and sex tourism brought it to the Western World. Men who might've slept with HIV positive women brought it to China, The Western World, and South America.

there have been genetic studies done on this very subject, and you can trace the path to the US through either cuba or haiti (i forget which country), all the way back to some bush-meat hunter in the central african jungle (congo if i remember right). kinda interesting in a creepy sorta way