Selectivity of Black Death mortality with respect to preexisting health
Selectivity of Black Death mortality with respect to preexisting health
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.0705460105
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发表时间：
2008-02-05
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Wood, James W.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
DeWitte, Sharon N.;Wood, James W.
与人类历史上已知的最致命的流行病--1347-1351年的黑死病--相关的死亡率是否与先前存在的健康状况（“虚弱”）有关？许多研究人员认为黑死病的毒性如此之强，而欧洲人的免疫系统又如此幼稚，因此这种流行病不分年龄、性别或虚弱程度，都会造成死亡。如果这是真的，黑死病墓地将提供14世纪欧洲人口和流行病学状况的公正横截面。使用骨骼仍然从中世纪的英格兰和丹麦，古人口年龄估计的新方法，以及最近的选择性死亡率的多个国家的模型，我们测试的假设，即14世纪中期黑死病滥杀无辜。从东史密斯菲尔德黑死病墓地在伦敦进行了比较，正常的，非流行性墓地样本从两个中世纪的丹麦城镇（维堡和欧登塞）。研究结果表明，黑死病并不是无差别地杀人，事实上，它对虚弱的人有选择性，尽管可能没有正常死亡率那么强烈。
Was the mortality associated with the deadliest known epidemic in human history, the Black Death of 1347-1351, selective with respect to preexisting health conditions ("frailty")? Many researchers have assumed that the Black Death was so virulent, and the European population so immunologically naive, that the epidemic killed indiscriminately, irrespective of age, sex, or frailty. If this were true, Black Death cemeteries would provide unbiased cross-sections of demographic and epidemiological conditions in 14th-century Europe. Using skeletal remains from medieval England and Denmark, new methods of paleodemographic age estimation, and a recent multistate model of selective mortality, we test the assumption that the mid-14th-century Black Death killed indiscriminately. Skeletons from the East Smithfield Black Death cemetery in London are compared with normal, nonepidemic cemetery samples from two medieval Danish towns (Viborg and Odense). The results suggest that the Black Death did not kill indiscriminately-that it was, in fact, selective with respect to frailty, although probably not as strongly selective as normal mortality.