One of the difficulties in supporting an alternative etiologic hypothesis for the Black Death is the uncertainty inherent in historical epidemic records and documentation.
And without proper documentation, the epidemic is likely worse than anyone thought.
Historical documentation of typhus epidemics includes almanacs; diaries; personal accounts; and medical and death records from hospitals, physicians, cemeteries, and municipalities.
Despite the large extent of the epidemic, there is a paucity of documentation on the profile of the growing group of urban poor people with hypertension in SSA.
This finding suggests that the most severe drought during those 15 typhus epidemics might have been located in east-central Mexico, where most of the 22 typhus epidemics were concentrated, according to historical documentation (J.N. Burns, unpub. data).
First of all, the widespread fraud in mortgage lending and documentation that led to the epidemic in foreclosures was abetted by lax legal and regulatory standards that failed to spot, stop and prevent abuse.
Here we present the first detailed quantitative documentation of percolation-type viral epidemics in a highly reproducible in vitro system consisting of tens of thousands of virtually motionless cells.
Thus, detection of such strains in travellers might indicate an epidemic situation elsewhere, and should prompt a thorough documentation of the patient's travel history.
However, given the school's receipt of such detailed epidemic reports from the Caribbean colonies, including the clearest documentation to date of the means of cattle-to-human transmission, the Saint-Domingue epizootic/epidemic and related ones must have played a role in the classical first characterization of anthrax by Alfort's director Philibert Chabert in 1780 (3).
Perhaps the most important result of this review is to highlight the need for improved documentation of mass vaccination campaigns and measles epidemics in emergencies.
