The role of Clerics and Paladins in medieval europe

[jgbrowning]

last word....

joe b.

 

[Agback]

The major speed bump in dealing with the plague, or any major disease like that (it could just as easily have been a massive influenza epidemic, like in.. what? 1914?) is knowing the link between sanitation and disease.

The 'flu pandemic was about 1918-1919, depending on where you were in the world.

You're right about hygiene. I read a very interesting abstract a little while ago about an experiment in which the members of a US Army battalion in barracks were ordered to wash their hands five times per day (and the inspection standards and schedule for hand basins were relaxed to make this not a crippling imposition). The number of people showing up on sick call fell to something like half. And the biggest effect was on respiratory diseases (eg. colds and flu), which we had used to think were primarily spread by droplet inhalation.

Another interesting epidemiological research fact concerns epidemics of chicken pox in the Aleutians in the 1890s. These were lethal, devastating, as deadly as the Black Death--in villages with no whites living in them. But where the population was at least 3% white people (even if none of them were doctors or nurses), almost no-one died. The reason seems to be that in communities with no previous exposure to chickenpox, everyone got sick at once, and there was no-one to chop wood or carry water for the sick. Thirst, exposure, and anything that causes fever is a nasty combination. But where there were even a few people in the community who had survived childhood exposure and were immune, they were able to do that tiny bit of basic nursing that allowed most people to survive chickenpox. (This, rather that the idea that the communities lacked genetically-based immunities, is probably behind many of the stories of populations being devastated by the introduction of foreigners' diseases.) Anyway: this suggess that just a few Cure Disease spells per day, just a few people immune to infectious disease, could have a huge, disproportionate effect on teh course and impact of an epidemic. Not to mention stockpiled wands of Cure Disease in orderly communities.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Sir Edgar]

last word....

joe b.

LOL, no way.

 

[jgbrowning]

Anyway: this suggess that just a few Cure Disease spells per day, just a few people immune to infectious disease, could have a huge, disproportionate effect on teh course and impact of an epidemic. Not to mention stockpiled wands of Cure Disease in orderly communities.

Regards,


Agback

Not so certain about the spells as it would be possible to for somthing to get out of hand before people realized it was dangerous, but the wands are what i think would make the biggest difference.

joe b.