Just in case you are not scared enough!
Ebola is getting news attention not because of the numbers.. but in the low rate of survival of the infected..
the common Flu kills far more every year then ebola.. Ebola shouldn't be such a huge concern if number of deaths was the concern..
Was Ebola Behind the Black Death?
L O N D O N, July 30
By Jen Sterling
Controversial new research suggests that contrary to the history books, the "Black Death" that devastated medieval Europe was not the bubonic plague, but rather an Ebola-like virus.
History books have long taught the Black Death, which wiped out a quarter of Europe's population in the Middle Ages, was caused by bubonic plague, spread by infected fleas that lived on black rats. But new research in England suggests the killer was actually an Ebola-like virus transmitted directly from person to person.
The Black Death killed some 25 million Europeans in a devastating outbreak between 1347 and 1352, and then reappeared periodically for more than 300 years. Scholars had thought flea-infested rats living on ships brought the disease from China to Italy and then the rest of the continent.
In their new book Biology of Plagues: Evidence from Historical Populations, Duncan and Scott compare the signs and symptoms of the Black Death with modern-day viruses such as the Spanish flu, the West Nile virus and, most closely, Ebola.
Medieval descriptions of the Black Death sound like the hemorrhagic fever caused by an Ebola-like virus, the authors say. Such fever strikes fast and causes blood vessels to burst underneath the skin, bringing out welts, similar to what British medical texts from the Middle Ages describe as "God's tokens."
The liquidization of internal organs that causes excruciating pain in Ebola victims matches the descriptions of historical autopsies on plague victims, which similarly describe internal organs being dissolved along with the appearance of a black liquid
Ebola is getting news attention not because of the numbers.. but in the low rate of survival of the infected..
the common Flu kills far more every year then ebola.. Ebola shouldn't be such a huge concern if number of deaths was the concern..