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So this had a couple of points I do want to look up and verify elsewhere (has anyone else replicated their work on incubation periods? Were rats and fleas really not living in Britain at the time?). However they make basic errors of fact both scientific and historical, and some of their ideas have recently been thoroughly disproven. I don't recommend this; it is not a reputable or reliable source.

Authors are now going into an imaginary new outbreak of what they insist is a haemorrhagic virus. Apart from barrier nursing, they say, there is nothing authorities can do.

Bullshit. Trace the contacts, isolate them, potentially treat them preventatively with antivirals and broad-spectrum antibiotics. Use the blood serum of anyone who recovers to treat new patients. Do basic public health response work, in other words.

First, not related to the image: I cannot find anything in the literature where buboes can be caused by a viral infection. Bubonic plague is not the only cause, but all the causes are bacterial.

Also, without comment beyond ??‍♀️?‍♂️: "[Measles] is not a danger to well nourished children in the developed world."

Wait, no, I have to comment. Measles is dangerous both in itself and because it actively destroys immunity to other diseases.

I take photos lest people not believe me how bad this book is.

"The symptoms of Ebola start with a sudden fever and the victim is killed by the liquefaction of the internal organs."

Ebola does not liquefy your organs. You haemorrhage, but your organs are not liquefied. There is some necrosis, but no liquefaction. This is a myth spread by the book The Hot Zone and the amounts of blood people see. It LOOKS like liquefaction.

"The signs, symptoms and autopsy reports of victims of
bubonic plague are entirely different from these: they do not
display God's tokens, nor is there widespread necrosis of the
internal organs."

But septicaemic plague (which is the same bacterium as bubonic plague) can cause necrosis. I've never dissected an animal with either disease, but I wonder about this. The authors don't seem too strong on the other presentations of Y. pestis infection.

"Is it possible that these treatments, whereby swollen lymph nodes were lanced or perhaps a large proportion of the infected white blood cells was removed, could have allowed the immune system to defeat the infection?"

Try asking a medical doctor. Or someone with an undergrad degree in biology. I am the latter. Yes to lancing lymph nodes, no to bleeding. You're welcome.

They do address the genetic evidence from older studies, but not from the one I know of, which had good controls. They basically dismiss the results as contamination or a different plague. They also admit they do not understand genetics.

Objection not sustained. They're wrong and that's another essential block of their argument gone.

I will admit that the argument of these authors against the theory that the Black Death was not bubonic plague seems solid. They establish that the vectors usually blamed (rats and fleas) were not present. (Assuming you believe what they say without citations, and you haven't noticed that they don't know absolutely basic history.) However... Their argument completely rules out plague transmission in England (for one).

Cont. in comment!

[citation needed]

Willing to believe the rat thing is correct, but I want the reference first. Oh look, there isn't one.

This is really picky, but a manuscript from 1404 -- even assuming that it was original, written in that year and not a copy -- is not ancient. These guys just have no real understanding of the scale of history.

Why are you surprised, you idiots? Contact between Scotland Iceland was common by the 1100s, with well-adapted boats designed for the purpose. Not safe, perhaps, nor particularly fast, but these authors just strike me as idiots who have done no research at all.

This book's cavalier approach to any kind of historical research is driving me absolutely round the twist. The author who recced this is... gullible, to say the least.

"...by all the rules of infectious diseases, when the Black Death was finished it should have disappeared."

What idiocy is this? Animal reservoirs. Endemic infections like measles, chicken pox, polio. Reintroduction from the same source again. Why are these authors so utterly wrong if one is allegedly an epidemiologist???

The authors assert that there is no panic or mystery about HIV, and that it is completely understood and under control, which makes me think they're living under a rock. Or just don't actually know what they're talking about, which I'll confess is my suspicion about this whole book, despite my attempts to be fair.

So far they've presented no proof, but I think I see some of the angles of attack. For example, they've noted that the first burial recorded as being due to plague in this town they're using as a case study was on its own, followed by 11 days without any burials marked as being due to plague. The incubation period of bubonic plague is only a few days, and pneumonic as little as a single day. Where did it go for 11 days?

(Cont in comments...)

Seanan Mcguire posted on twitter that one of her opinions she will never change her mind about is the idea that the Black Death was not due to bubonic plague (Yersinia pestis). I asked her for a source and she referred me to this book.

I'm not impressed by the idea of referring to a disease as a serial killer (it's true in a figurative sort of way. sure, but agency is totally lacking in the disease!), but I'll give it a chance.