The Dooms Day By Connie Willis

The Doomsday Paper - Biology
How is a 21st century influenza epidemic connected to the 14th century Black Death pandemic? Connie Willis, in her fictional Doomsday Book, takes the reader on a journey through time, examining the devastating effects of these two diseases. Hapless Kivrin, the story’s heroin, contracts influenza in the 21st century as she prepares to travel back in time to the 14th century on a research expedition. She is accidentally sent back to the wrong decade by an influenza infected time technician and encounters the plague in 1348. Willis provides impressive contrast between modern scientific approaches to diagnosing and battling influenza and Kivrin’s ill-equipped efforts at disease control and caring for the dying victims
She knew it was caused by the bacteria Yersinia Pestis and transmitted by infected fleas that live on rodents such a rats. On the run from the plague in Bath, England, a bishop and his attendants came to visit the family that Kivrin lived with in Skendgate. Within days of arriving from Bath, the bishop’s clerk came down with symptoms. This onset appears to fall within the 2-6 day time frame that the Center for Disease Control cites as the incubation period for bubonic plague. His symptoms include a painful and pus filled buboe under his arm, swollen tongue, fever, black skin patches, weakness and delirium. The clerk’s symptoms are not an exact match for the symptoms the Center for Disease Control lists. Currently, delirium and swollen tongue are not mentioned. Research into the Great Plague of 1665 reveals that swollen tongue and black skin patches were common symptoms of the bubonic plague at that time. It appears that Willis used multiple sources over various time periods when collecting symptoms of bubonic plague. She clearly identifies the three types of plague when Kivrin recalls, “There were two distinct types, no three – one went directly into the bloodstream and killed the victim within hours.” Here Kivrin is describing septicemic plague which kills the fastest. She goes on to describe the bubonic type which is spread by rat fleas and causes buboes (infected lymph nodes). Lastly, she mentions pneumonic which is highly contagious and is spread by droplet infection. This causes coughing and vomiting of blood and does not include buboes. Willis’ description of the 3 types of plague is accurate and thorough. There is, however, some confusion about how the clerk spread it to Rosemund, a teenager living in the same house as Kivrin. In a delirious fit, the clerk falls on top of the girl. Their mouths