SoA Forums

History => Ancient and Medieval History => Topic started by: Duncan Head on May 08, 2018, 10:19:23 AM

Title: Did Saladin die of typhus?
Post by: Duncan Head on May 08, 2018, 10:19:23 AM
The annual meeting of the Historical Clinicopathological Conference:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/may/05/what-killed-historys-most-famous-people-medical-sleuths-gather-to-investigate
Title: Re: Did Saladin die of typhus?
Post by: Imperial Dave on May 09, 2018, 12:23:32 PM
interesting line of investigation but I guess for most of our time period, iron poisoning was probably the majority cause of demise!
Title: Re: Did Saladin die of typhus?
Post by: Duncan Head on May 09, 2018, 01:18:17 PM
I suspect not:
QuoteIt is now a truism among historians that before the 20th Century far more people died in wartime from disease than from combat.
from https://search.proquest.com/openview/edb747f0aa944eb3a6be7f274842cd20/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1056335

Of course we rarely have reliable figures before the Early Modern period.

And in any case, for the first half of our period it would be bronze poisoning  :)
Title: Re: Did Saladin die of typhus?
Post by: Imperial Dave on May 09, 2018, 08:44:16 PM
fair point  :)