Defintions and disasters, and the black death

[nadinbrzezinski]

ok, ok,so this morning I was thinking about it. And it dawned on me. Why is it that people get this ahem... hysterical when the term pandemic comes about? Well we are simply using different definitions. Which by the way goes for many other issues.

You see when a health professional speaks of pandemic, we are using a pretty damn technical definition. Yep, it is person to person transmission in two areas of the world. It does not mean people will drop off like flies. Sorry... no stacks of bodies like cordwood. In-fact this is why 1918 was a pandemic, but there were never bodies stacked up like oh cordwood. Ditto for 1957 and 1968.

When the lay person speaks of pandemic there comes the image of the black death, which was a pandemic... by the by. This one did involve stacks of bodies in the streets and the proverbial people dying like flies moment.

By the way this is not the only issue where we are seeing this ahem differential between what a specialist defines and what the lay person defines. We see those in discussions of the economy all the time. What bothers me is that this creates a barrier...and since we are not seeing the proverbial disaster the lay person thinks the word means, whether this is in economic matters, health matters or other technical matters, of course people are lying to the lay person...and the cynicism ensues as well as the proverbial na, na, na, I am not listening moments we see here regularly.

So I guess the point is, we are NOT talking of the same thing when we talk of the same word... and in this particular case if you think pandemic means dead stacked up like cordwood... sorry, that's not what even the worst case numbers contemplate for the United States... they are horrific enough and disruptive enough...but nothing like the Monty Python bring out your death clip. In fact, unless you are personally touched, by a death in the family, even at projected for 1918 chances are you will not even know somebody close... but even double the normal rate of the annual casualty rate is bad enough, and that is a best case scenario by the by.

But now I get it... the term means in the popular imagination the black death. Well on the bright side the black death led to a lot of job openings and the Renaissance... so I guess there was a plus to it. Oh and for the black humor impaired :sarcasm:

[salguine]

1. Let's go shopping for a new analogy. Surely people stack something other than cordwood?

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. I raed that one so many times here that yes, it is apropriate

perhaps boxes if you wish

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Well, you put the sarcasm tag in, but a British commentator recently made everyone wonder

if he was putting that point seriously:

Via Liberal Conspiracy, I come across the thoughts of the Independent's John Rentoul, one of the very few Blair-fanciers left on the face of the planet:

Just to prove my utter devotion to the finest peace-time prime minister, I confess my reaction when I read that the Tony Blair Faith Foundation Facebook page had been defaced with, among others, this comment:

"Tony Blair was about as good for Britain as the bubonic plague."

My recollection of medieval economic history is that the bubonic plague was good for Britain. By reducing the population, it increased wealth per head in a relatively stable society and forced it to improve agricultural productivity.

It was not just good for Britain, it was the basis of the economic pre-revolution that laid the foundations for this country to become the leading economic and military power of the world.

Just as, in a few centuries, Blair's creation of academy schools will again.

It's an interesting point. The analogy isn't quite apposite, as during Blair's tenure we didn't have to bury the diseased bodies of our brethren in mass graves, although we did have to do that to the bodies of millions of livestock, which rather than improving agricultural productivity instead decimated our farmers when vaccination against foot and mouth was another option which was rejected. No, Blair instead decided that the Iraqis, having already had recent experience with burying thousands of bodies were the best people to get back in the mood of the middle ages, and you have to admit, Blair succeeded on that score beyond even his wildest dreams.

You can't really argue with Rentoul's logic in any case. That he completely sidesteps the intended meaning of the barb, and then regardless decides to suggest that the plague was in fact good for Britain, if not so wonderful for the entire villages which were decimated, almost makes it seem as if he secretly accepts that Blair wasn't the greatest thing since sliced bread. Instead, as David Blunkett said, we can't seem to appreciate a prophet in our country; it'll only be in 200 years, when you and I will have long since turned to dust, that Blair will be truly feted. That unpleasantness in Iraq will be thoroughly overshadowed by Blair's fabulous constitutional reforms and the introduction of academy schools, turning out an entire nation equipped with the skills to function as call centre operators. Perhaps in 2209, when these septic isles are no longer known as the United Kingdom but instead Offshore Telephony Solutions #1 and #2, they'll truly admire the sage that we refused to acknowledge.

http://www.septicisle.info/2009/04/plague-has-nothing-on-blair.html

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Yeah I did put the tag

but historians generally agree that the dramatic drop in population was related to the rise of the burgois... in Europe and the Renaissance.

So even that disaster had a happy ending, you could argue, but I would not want to go through that, if you get what I mean.

[enlightenment]

5. Not to argue your main point, but I distinctly recall reading

that the dead in 1918 were 'stacked like cordwood' . . .

http://birdflubook.com/a.php?id=5

One nurse describes bodies “stacked in the morgue from floor to ceiling like cordwood.” At the peak of the epidemic, she remembers toe-tagging and wrapping more than one still-living patient in winding sheets. In her nightmares, she wondered “what it would feel like to be that boy who was at the bottom of the cordwood in the morgue.”66

The excerpt is drawn from
Morrisey C. 1997. Transcript of unaired interview for Influenza 1918, American Experience, February 26. Cited in: Barry JM. 2004. The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History (New York, NY: Viking, p. 190).
-----------------------

As I said, I'm not arguing your point; just that there were incidences of bodies stacked during the 1918 pandemic - and mass graves - and all that other stuff. I'm an historian, not a scientist, so I not touching the rest of your comments!

;)

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Well you are correct and in very limited areas that happened

in the morgue.

Hey, I am also a historian and a former medic, that happens.

Hell I had bodies stacked after a train wreck we had to process, but nothing like the black death, where they were in the streets. Nor did people fall down dead.

And that is what is in the popular imagination when the word comes out.

By the by, the worst case numbers in the US for a pandemic would severely stress the system. Yes we would see some morgues, ahem over stressed again. Even a mid range projection will over stress the system

:-)

But point taken. I love it when people go dig out primary sources.

By the way my other favorite term that has different connotations for the working historian or economist and the lay public is depression.

[enlightenment]

7. Ah - then you understand the phrase,

'pedantry, thy name is historian' (as we beat each other about the head and shoulders with the wet noodles of primary sources . . . 'but xxx said!' 'NO! xxx said!' 'Who are you kidding? xxx said . . .' )

:)