Re: Answer to Peter A Re: Typhus and the 5th BC Athenian Plague

IE J wrote: news:75dUf.49460$d5.206042@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Alan Crozier" <name1.name2@xxxxxxxxx> skrev i meddelandet
news:PpbUf.49449$d5.206033@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"IEj" <inger_e.johansson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:xVaUf.49447$d5.205934@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Peter when will you learn to read full texts I written?
Not blaiming Philip for sending the post but for being confused
between Typhus and Typhus fever.
Apart from that I wanted to know the origin of the assumed "Typhus"
in Athen. In other word more than the article gave away. Do you or
don't you have more special knowledge than you shown in the
question up to now it would be very interesting to learn where it
origin from. Find it hard to believe that the Greek had bad water
and hygiene.

You are right, Inger. it is important to read full texts. The
National Geographic article to which Philip sent a link gave very
few details, but it did state that the study was available online,
so it was easy for me to go to the original study to find out that
it wasn't typhus but typhoid fever, caused by Salmonella enterica
serovar Typhi.

The authors, as you know, talk about insanitary conditions and poor
water conditions during the siege. Why do you find that hard to
believe?

That's the author's opinion. He has the right to have his opinion.

What a impertinence!

However his assumption behind his opinion needs more hard facts
either from contemporary sources or from archaeologic
excavationresults.

What more hard facts do you expect? A written
statement by the Water & Food Authorities that
everything was fine?

From the article (page 8)
" In conclusion, the results of this study incriminate
typhoid fever as a probable cause of the Plague of
Athens. Considering the overcrowding and
insanitary conditions (especially regarding the
water supplies) within the walls of the besieged
Athens, a typhoid epidemic would have been
likely to break out either as the solitary cause of
the plague or as an minor epidemic adjunct to a
yet unidentified agent of the major one. ..."

Apart from that he hasn't looked into the premisses
needed for his assumption to be true. Not at all.


" until now, the diagnosis of the cause of the
Plague of Athens was based exclusively on
Thucydides' narrations, taking their validity and
reliability for granted. In addition, it is generally
assumed that no key clinical features were
omitted and the description of the disease was
as accurate as possible at the time, even though
some parts of Thucydides' great history were
written in retrospect, as much as 20 years after
the recorded facts.Although a keen observer, a
careful recorder of events and a victim of the
disease himself, Thucydides may not have been
able to weigh the relative significance of the
variable clinical manifestations of the plague. The
writer may have stressed trivial signs and
symptoms at the expense of important ones.
Even though the description of the plague reflects
Thucydides' familiarity with medical terminology,
it is important to remember that the writer was
not a physician but an historian. "

That last statement sounds very familiar.
Are you shure you are in a position to grant the
writers of the article their own opinion, and are
you sure you have the capabilities to have a
opinion of your own? I don't think so

--
p.a.


.