A new book by Professor Sam Cohn on the epidemiology of bubonic plague and the Black Death is launched at the University tomorrow, 23 May at 5.15 p.m. in No !0 University Gardens.

Since 1894, when the bacillus of bubonic plague was discovered, historians and scientists have proclaimed that this disease, carried by rats and spread by fleas, was the same as the Black Death, which swept through Europe from 1347 onwards. 'The Black Death Transformed: Disease and Culture in the Early Renaissance', a revolutionary new book by Samuel K. Cohn, Jr., and published by Arnold, presents compelling new research showing that this was simply not the case: neither the rat nor the flea was guilty. Professor Cohn is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Glasgow.

Drawing evidence from over 40,000 contemporary sources, including chronicles, last wills and testaments, miracle cures, and the earliest surviving burial records, Professor Cohn reveals striking differences between the epidemiology of bubonic plague and the Black Death. Over the first hundred years after its arrival, people developed immunity to the Black Death, something impossible with bubonic plague.

The disease brought terror and devastation with its first strikes in 1347-52. Yet, as Cohn shows, with successive waves of the plague, contemporaries turned from religious and supernatural explanations of the disease to socially grounded ones and remedies which they believed cured the plague-stricken. This physiological ability to adapt rapidly to the disease inspired confidence, allowing the Renaissance to flourish throughout Europe.

The Black Death Transformed: Disease and Culture in the Early Renaissance (ISBN 0 340 70646 5), by Samuel K. Cohn, Jr, is published by Arnold, priced £50.00.

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First published: 22 May 2002