Viruses everywhere, far and wide.

[Emanuele Buratti]

>In article <MAILQUEUE-101.941122095703.448 at molbiol.uct.ac.za>,
>RYBICKI, ED <ed at molbiol.uct.ac.za> wrote:
>> even given DELIBERATE introductions of 
>>highly virulent viruses into susceptible populations (eg: 
>>myxomatosis in rabbits in the 50's), populations crashed, but soon 
>>recovered.  Less of the doom and gloom!~!

	I think an interesting example was the Great Plague in 1333
(China)- 1348 (UK). It is estimated that the Europeans of the time
decreased by 1/3 and/or 1/4 of the original population (there were 100000
deaths in Florence in 1345 and 60000 in Siena, just to give an example,
and many villages around Oxford in 1948 simply DISAPPEARED from later
maps). Hygienic standards (both before and after) were, to say the least,
quite low, and a cure non-existant. A perfect analogy to a rabbit
population then. I remember reading somewhere that the population did not
reach pre-plague levels until well after 1450, and it did so with all
kinds of interesting social changes, by the way. We are not rabbits, it's
true, but in some places in my country I've got some serious doubts, :-). 
And they tell me things were even worse in the past! (y'now, the winter 
is long without TV and soap operas).
Bye everybody. 
Emanuele Buratti
ICGEB Trieste, Italy.