swine flu, plague, cats, rats & urban legends
Global Voices Online quotes my swine flu post in a great round-up article. Bloggers from all over the Caribbean – Grenada, Guyana, Barbados, Jamaica, Belize and Cuba – are quoted. Read it here:
Global Voices Online » Caribbean: Keeping Track of Swine Flu
I’m always thrilled when Global Voices Online picks up one of my blog posts. I just wish this one didn’t include my unwitting perpetuation of an urban legend. When Jared, who is a good RL friend and fellow graduate of Cornell’s History Department, posted his comment questioning my anecdote, I looked all over the internet for confirmation. While I did find many references to cat-hunting leading to the explosion of the European rat population leading to the bubonic plague, none of them were based on reputable sources. I WAS WRONG. (See the comments in the post for more details.)
My mom, a former biology teacher and general knower-of-stuff-like-this told me that her understanding is that the explosion of the rat population (which did indeed lead to more fleas which led to plague) had more to do with the urbanization of Europe than anything else. In other words, once people started living in the squalor that was medieval cities, the proverbial pump was primed for plague.
I feel silly for perpetuating an urban legend, even though I firmly believe that my overarching point is still valid.
And it does make a good story, ent?
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Posted on May 1st, 2009 under Grenada • Tags: barbados, belize, caribbean, cats, cuba, fleas, global voices online, Grenada, guyana, history, jamaica, link love, plague, rats, science, swine flu, urban legends, west indies, witches. • 
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May 1st, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Hey, thanks for not getting mad at me for being so pedantic.
I think the reason we’re so interested in epidemics has a lot to do with our concerns about globalization. So while I totally understand your skepticism about the panic, I also like to think of it as an attempt at a worldwide “imagined community.” It’s actually very comforting to realize that this is a concern shared by the WHOLE WORLD. Like in an alien invasion movie when the whole planet learns to cooperate in the face of a new enemy, except this time the enemy is agro-capitalism and third world poverty.
May 1st, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Well said, Jared. Your comments are ALWAYS welcome here.