this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2026
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That’s not how it was spread, not really. It was spread by fleas and other blood to blood contact if the person had the bubonic plague and, in later stages, through the air in close contact via infectious respiratory droplets if the person had the pneumonic plague.
My comment was an over simplification. By having higher hygiene standards we reduced our contact with rats and other things that can carry it. It is essentially "We did A, which caused B through G, which lead to less of H."
Your comment was partially incorrect. I corrected you. While it was a matter of hygiene, washing hands had little to nothing to do with it. You didn’t mention anything about rats or the fleas they carried, which were the primary carrier of the bubonic plague
I implore you to understand what an over simplification statement mean in regard to a multi step process that took centuries of understanding what to do and not to do. What conditions are considered acceptable now vs 700 years ago and so on.
An oversimplification doesn't mean you get to make completely false statements. An oversimplification ignores other significant factors to end up with a simple statement that for the most part is true.
This is an acceptable oversimplification.
This is not because this is just factually wrong.
The latter is what is being corrected. Now apply your smartass education and understand when you're wrong.
If you don't understand how the basic concept of washing your hands (which at the time was just splashing your hands in dirty water) stems from having a higher understanding better quality standards of living, like not sleeping with the farm animals for warmth, shitting in the street, or bathing in dirty water, all of which can cause rats, fleas, and ticks to rampage an area, then that's on you.
I can't teach you cause and effect of dealing with a long term systemic issue caused by a multitude of factors and variables.
This is supposition. If you have any reliable sources to back up these claims that washing one’s hands had any actual or meaningful effect on the spread of the black plague, please cite them.
Holy shit you people are fucking stupid. That's not what I said and I've already spelled it out for you.
You did say that.
You did not provide any evidence to back up your claims. You are not a reliable source.
What you're saying is B stems from A, and A causes C therefore we can say B causes C. But it is correlation, not causation and a pretty surprising thing to say
In an era of anti-vax bullshit, it's not acceptable to be that incorrect in your "oversimplification".
I understand what “oversimplification” means. You do not seem to understand what “incorrect“ means.
Hygiene literally means practices that maintain health. Saying "we are healthy by maintaining better hygiene" literally means "We maintained our health by engaging in practices that maintained our health."