title: The black death past and present. 2. Some historical problems.
abstract: This paper looks, from a historian's point of view, at the black death and the epidemics of plague which succeeded it in Europe from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. It identifies the controversial questions, of medical as well as historical interest, which have been raised by recent work. These include the origins of plague epidemics, the role of rodents and insect vectors in them, and the reasons for their disappearance from western Europe.
authors.affiliation: Exeter College, Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Slack
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000266:history*; D005060:Europe; D049668:History, 15th Century; D049669:History, 16th Century; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D007303:Insect Vectors; D010930:Plague / Q000266:history* / Q000635:transmission; D051381:Rats; D005423:Siphonaptera