The Black Death Transformed: Disease and culture in early Renaissance Europe by Samuel Cohn, Edward Arnold/Oxford, 拢50/$65, ISBN 0340706465
OLD theories do not die simply because they are disproved. They die only when those who cling to them die鈥攐r so philosophers of science have argued. How nice, then, to read books that defy their gloomy prediction. Last year, two epidemiologists argued persuasively that Europe鈥檚 medieval Black Death could not have been bubonic plague carried by rats, the popular theory since early last century (New 杏吧原创, 24 November 2001, p 34). Now historian Samuel Cohn, using many new sources and completely different methods, has reached exactly the same conclusion.
His book is a fascinating account of what those struck by the great pestilence had to say about it: how the disease evolved; how squabbling biologists concocted the bubonic theory; and the inconvenient facts they and their apologists steadfastly ignored, including evidence that unlike bubonic plague, the Black Death induced immunity.
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Why is this important? The epidemiologists think we need to understand the Black Death in case it returns. The historian just wants to set the record straight. That鈥檚 partly because he sees, in the gradual waning of the plague鈥檚 deadliness, one source of the humanistic confidence that led to the Renaissance. An ambitious leap, but one fit to accompany the sound of old theories crashing down.