Did Arsenic or other poisonous gases cause the Plague?
by Cal Crilly
Did arsenic cause the plague, was it rats at all, when comets and meteors hit us they leave earthquakes and severe earthquakes will release gases and poisons like arsenic.
If there were meteors in the sky, they could have hit areas like Siberia in Russia, where eyewitnesses were few or multiple volcanoes could have exploded?
An eruption of the large Icelandic volcano Katla happened in Jan 1311 before the century went downhill and there were natural world events of unimaginable destruction as you will find below.
Arsenic causes similar symptoms of Bubonic plaque, add things like possibly Uranium and Lead from the sky at the most pessimistic and we get exposed to these chemicals via breathing and ultimately end up drinking it and eating animals dying from Arsenic too.
And it is unpleasantly horrifying.
‘Based on an investigation of the present incident and a review of the literature, skin lesions associated with acute arsenic poisoning can be characterized as follows. Within a few days of the poisoning, transient flushing of the skin on the face, trunk or extremities and facial oedema may be seen, particularly on the eyelids, and also conjunctival haemorrhage. At 4-6 days after the ingestion of arsenic, when hepatic dysfunction starts to develop, peculiar erythematous papules suggestive of malaria develop symmetrically in the intertriginous areas. Because the same clinical picture was found regardless of whether prior treatment with sodium thiosulphate had been carried out, we believe that this eruption is characteristic for acute arsenic poisoning. In some cases, these papules may be confluent and form diffuse erythema, spreading over the entire body over several days to develop into exfoliative dermatitis accompanied by numerous small blisters or pustules. At 6-20 days after the ingestion of arsenic, hyperkeratosis and lamellar desquamation of the hands and feet develop, that may last for more than 3 months. Starting at 2-4 weeks after ingesting arsenic, Mee’s or Beau’s lines begin to appear on the nails. Periungual or labial pigmentation is also observed. During or after acute arsenic poisoning, some patients exhibit herpesvirus infection. Histopathologically, abnormalities of the dermal capillaries are found in the erythematous papules which appear 4-6 days after the ingestion of arsenic. The endothelial cells are swollen, and the vascular walls are occasionally destroyed. Around these capillaries, moderate to marked inflammatory cell infiltration, consisting mainly of lymphocytes and histiocytes, and occasional neutrophils and eosinophils, is observed. Numerous pigment granules, which are positive for Masson-Fontana stain, are sometimes seen in histiocytes around the capillaries or among the collagen fibres in the papillary dermis. When the eruption becomes more intense, the perivascular cellular infiltration is more pronounced, and apoptosis of the basal cells of the epidermis becomes apparent.’
Skin Manifestations in Acute Arsenic Poisoning: Discussion
A book by Mike Baille called ‘New Light on the Black Death questions the validity of the ‘Plague theory’…
I could explain at length how ghastly the 14th century was but here is what happened in a sentence or two taken from this piece of history The Disastrous 14th Century
At the start of the 1300’s it got so cold that the Baltic Sea froze over.
Even before that in 1270 it got so cold that there was a battle fought on the Baltic Sea ice called the Battle of Karuse.
In 1315 France’s crops failed due to flooding and there was famine, reports of cannibalism and epidemics. Fleas on rats were blamed for the plague which came along from 1346 onwards. Areas of China, India, Europe, The Middle East, and North Africa then lost between 20 to 75% of their populations.
But Dr Mike Baillie is a Professor Emeritus of Palaeoecology in the School of Archaeology and Palaeoecology at Queen’s University of Belfast in Northern Ireland, who is a tree ring historian, disagrees with the rat theory and has documented other causes.
There are documentaries here with Baillie on the 536 AD volcanic events which led to the Justinian plague. 536 A.D: The Worst Year In History
Dr Mike Baillie appears a lot in this one due to his tree ring analysis of weather going back thousands of years. 536 AD: The Year That The Sun Disappeared
“Over the years doubts have been expressed about the accepted view that the Black Death was caused by bubonic plague. By looking at the evidence of tree-rings and ice cores, Mike Baillie, professor of dendrochronology, has identified a series of natural catastrophes at the beginning of the 14th century caused by meteor strikes. On the basis of the current scientific evidence and of contemporary accounts of the nature and spread of the disease, he is convinced that the disease was airborne, not carried by rats.”
My opinion is if the ground is hit by meteors or volcanoes erupt then the most worrying gas to emerge is Arsenic.
It can’t be smelt easily with apparently a light almond smell?
It is already at levels that are dangerous in some water supplies, so it accumulates.
So what did Mike Baille find from people quoting in the 14th Century?
‘Droughts, floods, earthquakes, locusts, subterranean thunder, unheard of tempests, lightning, sheets of fire, hail stones of marvelous size, fire from heaven, stinking smoke, corrupted atmosphere, a vast rain of fire, masses of smoke.’ (Ziegler)
‘In the thirty-first year of Emperor Lewis, around the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul (25 January) there was an earthquake throughout Carinthia and Carniola which was so severe that everyone feared for their lives. There were repeated shocks, and on one night the earth shook 20 times. Sixteen cities were destroyed and their inhabitants killed…. Thirty-six mountain fortresses and their in habitants were destroyed and it was calculated that more than 40,000 men were swallowed up or overwhelmed’ (?)
‘It says in the same letter that in this year [1348] fire falling from heaven consumed the land of the Turks for 16 days; that for a few days it rained toads and snakes, by which many men were killed: that a pestilence has gathered strength in many parts of the world.’ (Horrox)
‘… a dragon at Jerusalem like that of Saint George that devoured all that crossed its path …. A city of 40,000 … totally demolished by the fall from heaven of a great quantity of worms, big as a fist with eight legs, which killed all by their stench and poisonous vapours.’ (Samuel Cohn)
‘. massive rains of worms and serpents in parts of China, which devoured large numbers of people. Also in those parts fire rained from Heaven in the form of snow (ash), which burnt mountains, the land, and men. And from this fire arose a pestilential smoke that killed all who smelt it within twelve hours, as well as those who only saw the poison of that pestilential smoke.’ (Dominican friar Bartolomeo in Samuel Cohn’s book)
‘Insofar as the mortality arose from natural causes its immediate cause was a corrupt and poisonous earthy exhalation, which infected the air in various parts of the world… I say it was the vapour and corrupted air which has been vented – or so to speak purged – in the earthquake that occurred on St. Paul’s day [1348], along with the corrupted air vented in other earthquakes and eruptions, which has infected the air above the earth and killed people in various parts of the world.’ (Horrox)
‘On the island of Cyprus, the plague from the East had already broken out; when an earthquake shook the foundations of the island, and was accompanied by so frightful a hurricane, that the inhabitants… fled in dismay… The sea overflowed… Before the earthquake, a pestiferous wind spread so poisonous an odour that many, being overpowered by it, fell down suddenly and expired in dreadful agonies. … and as at that time natural occurrences were transformed into miracles, it was reported that a fiery meteor, which descended on the earth far in the East, had destroyed everything within a circumference of more than a hundred leagues, infecting the air far and wide.’ (the German historian Hecker taken from Cohn)
The best recent example was the Laki explosion in Iceland in 1783.
So perhaps it is best to expect and get ready for these events as this is the long forgotten ‘Miasma theory’.
‘of key importance to the events examined here is the fact that in 1783, volcanic gases emitted by the eruption in Iceland were transported to Europe by the prevailing winds, where they caused considerable respiratory distress to susceptible people and damage to crops, trees and fish. Very detailed descriptions of severe acid damage to vegetation, insects, people and property have been left by a number of scientists, of which the recently rediscovered records of two Dutchmen, Brugmans (1787) and Van Swinden (1786), reveal the impacts of the Laki eruption during the summer of 1783. In mainland Europe the volcanic gases were described as a ‘dry fog’, an ‘acid fog’ or ‘sulphurous fog’. For example, Brugmans (1787) noted: “On many days after the 24th June, in both the town of Groningen and countryside there was a strong, persistent fog…the fog was very dense and accompanied by a very strong smell of sulphur.., many people in the open air experienced an uncomfortable pressure, headaches and experienced a difficulty breathing…”.
This account is typical of many that were written at the time. Many crops withered because of the acid deposition but there are no reports on the continent of famine. This is different in northern Scotland where the population was facing hardship because of a harvest failure in 1782, a year before the eruption. The food situation was already poor when acid deposition and ash from the Laki eruption rained down and destroyed crops. Contemporary reports from northern Scotland suggest that many farmers and their families abandoned their farms and ‘were forced to beg or perish’. This shows that the effects of the Laki eruption were not the direct cause for famine in Northern Scotland but the last straw which triggered the crisis.”
Volcanic Eruptions and European History
Miasma theory was dismissed in the 19th Century after finally realising cleaning your hand didn’t pass on bacteria and fungi to patients.
They fashionably forgot in the biggest case of ‘Cognitive Dissonance’ in history that we are on a small ball of rock and beneath the ground are a lot of poisons like Arsenic, Lead and more while there really are solar storms and meteors and comets out there to run into.
So Miasma theory has been forgotten but it is still valid in case of disaster via breathing.
“In miasma theory, diseases were caused by the presence in the air of a miasma, a poisonous vapour in which were suspended particles of decaying matter that was characterised by its foul smell. The theory originated in the Middle Ages and endured for several centuries.”
When the Pope gathered experts during the Plague of the 1340’s this is what they advised…
“”The pope sent to Paris to obtain the opinions of the medical faculty there in 1348. They studied the problem for a time and returned a report. The good professors opined that the disaster was caused by a particularly unfortunate conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in the sign of Aquarius that had occurred in 1345. This conjunction cause hot, moist conditions, which cause the earth to exhale poisonous vapors. The report went on to recommend steps to keep safe from the disease. This, in part, was their prescription:
No poultry should be eaten, no waterfowl, no pig, no old beef, altogether no fat meat. . . . It is injurious to sleep during the daytime. . . . Fish should not be eaten, too much exercise may be injurious . . . and nothing should be cooked in rainwater. Olive oil with food is deadly. . . . Bathing is dangerous. . . .
The History of the Bubonic Plague
The Pope was giving good advice to avoid poisoning.
“New research has demonstrated that people who ate more dietary vitamin B12 and animal protein had lower levels of arsenic (measured by deposition in toenails). Total dietary fat, animal fat, vegetable fat and saturated fat were also all associated with lower levels of arsenic, while omega 3 fatty acids, such as those found in fish oil, were associated with increased arsenic.”
What you eat can prevent to arsenic overload
The reason that olive oil was dangerous may have been from basic iron pots that food was cooked in, the olive oil absorbed the iron from the pots and the subsequent olive oil/iron mix then bound to arsenic in any water making it more readily absorbed when eaten.
In short rusty pots suck up arsenic and if you eat the rust, you get more arsenic.
Olive oil also has some Omega 3 oils which apparently make arsenic more toxic.
The pope was near the poison link.
Jamestown Virginia may be a good example of what happens to people poisoned by Arsenic.
“The Starving Time refers to the winter of 1609–1610 when about three-quarters of the English colonists in Virginia died of starvation or starvation-related diseases. In his unpublished account A Trewe Relacyon, George Percy, who served as president during these grim months, wrote that Englishmen felt “the sharpe pricke of hunger which noe man trewly descrybe butt he which hathe tasted the bitternesse thereof.” Already for two years, the Jamestown colonists had died at alarming rates, mostly of summertime diseases. In 1609, the beginning of the First Anglo-Powhatan War (1609–1614) prompted the Indians to lay siege to the English fort, helping to provoke the famine. Settlers were forced to eat snakes, vipers, rats, mice, musk turtles, cats, dogs, horses, and perhaps even raptors. Although there is no archaeological corroboration, multiple gruesome stories even suggest that settlers devoured each other. The siege lifted in May 1610, and when the survivors of the Sea Venture wreck arrived in Virginia, they found just 60 gaunt remnants of the 240 people who had crowded the fort the previous November. Many observers argued that the colonists’ idleness—their persistent refusal to work for their food—contributed to the famine.”
So, what did Arsenic do in Jamestown?
Because they did find it in the water and extreme weakness or ‘idleness’ is a symptom.
“Because arsenic affects every part of the body, it could account for the wide range of symptoms experienced by Jamestown’s settlers, Hancock says. He has pored through the historical accounts of those symptoms, and found striking parallels with the effects of arsenic poisoning. “I found six or seven categories of illness that fit with arsenic,” Hancock says. For example, the settlers reported “bloody flux” — bloody diarrhea — extreme weakness, and delirium. All are symptoms of arsenic poisoning. Some of the ill suffered from strange skin peeling — which, Hancock says, can also be caused by arsenic poisoning. In addition, the historical records contain accounts of sudden death. “People went to bed at night in adequate health and were dead in the morning. Arsenic poisoning will cause cardiac arrhythmias,” Hancock says, which can lead to sudden, fatal, heart attacks.”
“We now know that the Jamestown colonists’ fear of Indian attacks kept them pinned inside their palisade during that winter, a period that became known as “the starving time.” Only 10 percent of the colonists survived that winter. James Whittenburg, a historian at the College of William & Mary’s National Institute of American History & Democracy (NIAHD), said that starving-time colonists ate their own domestic animals. When the horses and dogs ran out, they turned to rats and snakes. When they got thirsty, they had wells inside the fort, but the water was just plain awful.”
Pocohontas Drank Here but you Wouldn’t Want To
Genetically anyone eating animal livers full of Vitamin A then can switch on their genes or hypomethylate.
‘In 1969, Cleland and Southcott proposed that Mertz died of vitamin A toxicity and Mawson suffered from the effects of hypervitaminosis A because, with little food left, they were forced to eat their surviving dogs, including the liver.’
Plus without adequate Vitamin D from Sun the switched-on genes do not differentiate in the right direction to become adult cells and they get confused and cancerous while Arsenic causes further hypomethylation of the genome by depleting S-adenosylmethionine, it is like your cells become babies again without a ‘growth map’ while also being poisoned.
“We find that arsenic causes the depletion of S-adenosylmethionine, the main cellular methyl donor”
Selenium in the diet can act as an antidote to arsenic and with less Selenomethionine and Folate from food the supply of S-adenosylmethionine gets lower.
Starving people do not get enough Vitamin C, folate from vegetables, or protein with selenium, so they can get scurvy and their skin falls apart while lung infections can get worse.
We can also get Herpes attacks and Shingles if poisoned by Arsenic as well as immune dysfunction.
Meteor Strikes and Arsenic Release…
This is an example of a meteor causing Arsenic poisoning in Peru in 2007 which relates back to Baillie’s collection of sky events.
This was not a big case but arsenic is all over the US and Arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh is on a big scale.
“Nearby residents who visited the impact crater complained of headaches and nausea, spurring speculation that the explosion was a subterranean geyser eruption or a release of noxious gas from decayed matter underground.
But the illness was the result of inhaling arsenic fumes, according to Luisa Macedo, a researcher for Peru’s Mining, Metallurgy, and Geology Institute (INGEMMET), who visited the crash site. The meteorite created the gases when the object’s hot surface met an underground water supply tainted with arsenic, the scientists said. Numerous arsenic deposits have been found in the subsoils of southern Peru, explained Modesto Montoya, a nuclear physicist who collaborated with the team. The naturally formed deposits contaminate local drinking water. “If the meteorite arrives incandescent and at a high temperature because of friction in the atmosphere, hitting water can create a column of steam,” added José Ishitsuka, an astronomer at the Peruvian Geophysics Institute, who analyzed the object.”
Meteor Crash in Peru Caused Mysterious Illness
I used a different link to the story above.
Both the 1918 Flu and H1N1 ‘Bird Flu’ have associations with Arsenic poisoning as well as influenza …
Lead Arsenate was also used as a pesticide from the 1890’s for decades, WW1 uprooted people so they went off the land and started eating mass produced food instead of growing their own at home.
In the 19th century arsenic was also used in skin cream and soap and as colouring for food and more. It could make you wonder how much arsenic exposure influenced smallpox and TB epidemics in the past.
Arsenic Exposure and Toxicology: A Historical Perspective
As selenium is protective it appears that ‘Garlic and onion, broccoli, wild leek, have the ability to accumulate selenium (Se) from soil.’ and they also act as anticancer foods. Did people eat properly?
Garlic was also a cure for plague and influenza and Cod Liver Oil that has high Vitamin D was commonly used as a treatment for TB, influenza, and lung infections.
Simply having a lack of sunlight is a risk factor for TB, influenza, and lung infections. This then has implications for volcanic ash or plain pollution from burning to keep warm causing less exposure to sunlight.
19th Century Britain was plagued by rickets from lack of sunlight.
Epidemic influenza and vitamin D
This quote is on the effect of Cod Liver Oil on TB.
“However, in 18% of patients given cod liver oil, the disease was arrested”
Though too much cod liver oil causes vitamin A poisoning, all about balance.
Then before and during World War One it became a medical fashion to use arsenic for syphilis treatment.
In 1906 Paul Ehrlich, the famous German physician, who died in 1915, discovered Salvarsan 606 and Neosalvarsan 614, the world’s first chemotherapeutic agents for systemic treatment of a micro-organism. These were to revolutionise the treatment of syphilis. For centuries before Salvarsan, treatment was by the use of mercury and iodides but these medications usually failed to prevent the disease progressing over the years to the incurable tertiary stages. It is of interest that in 1915, nine years after the discovery of Salvarsan, mercury was still prescribed by injection and inunction.”
“Arsenic.--Fowler’s and Donovan’s solutions are useful alternatives, but the powerful specific is salvarsan, and its derivative neosalvarsan. Neosalvarsan is possibly not quite so strong as salvarsan. but it is easier to use, and causes fewer toxic symptoms. Moreover, intravenous injections can be given in the consulting room, and the patient allowed to go home immediately afterwards. Both can be used for intramuscular injections, but the necessary bulk is so great, that much pain and induration may follow. Another great disadvantage of the intramuscular route, which necessitates several injections, is that, as there is no guide as to the amount of the drug that has been absorbed, there is no indication when it is safe to repeat the injection.
“Ioha” is the best preparation of salvarsan for iintramuscular use, and for neosalvarsan the proportion of l gm. dissolved in 22 cc. of pure distilled water.”
Was H1N1 Bird Flu worsened by Arsenic too?
They have been poisoning them for years with chicken feed additive in addition to hormones they give which lower immunity.
“Arsenic, chicken feed and the FDA are three terms not normally seen together in health articles. Here’s how such an alignment can happen… An arsenic-containing drug used in chicken feed will no longer be sold in the U.S. after FDA researchers detected a more dangerous form of arsenic in chickens fed the chemical.”
Arsenic-containing drug in chicken feed to be pulled from U.S. (June 2011 LA Times)
But they knew it was poisonous back in 1969, Industry is a bit slow to act…
Toxicity of an organic arsenical, 3-nitro-4-hydroxyphenylarsonic acid. Residues in chicken tissues
Here are 2 studies that show the effect on immunity to bird flu and influenza in mice.
“The team believes their study is the first to link flu morbidity to arsenic, which occurs naturally in the drinking water of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. In the United States public drinking water must meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) arsenic limit of 10 ppb, but private well water is unregulated. Up to 25 million Americans with private wells may be exposed to arsenic levels above the EPA limit. In many regions of the United States and in Mexico, where the novel H1N1 outbreak began, arsenic levels in well water commonly exceed the EPA limit by tenfold or more.
The current study was inspired by recent epidemiologic research indicating that chronic exposure to arsenic increased the risk for a variety of pulmonary diseases including impaired lung function, cancer, and bronchiectasis. Other studies, including recent work by members of this research team [EHP 117:1108–1115 (2009)], have indicated that arsenic exposure can suppress the innate immune system. Impairment of the immune cells in the lungs as a result of arsenic exposure could also alter the ability to fight other infectious challenges”
New Face of a Well-Known Hazard: Arsenic Alters H1N1 Response in Mice
And normal influenza.
“Arsenic exposure is a significant worldwide environmental health concern. We recently reported that 5-week exposure to environmentally relevant levels (10 and 100 ppb) of As in drinking water significantly altered components of the innate immune response in mouse lung, which we hypothesize is an important contributor to the increased risk of lung disease in exposed human populations.”
Low-dose arsenic compromises the immune response to influenza A infection in vivo.
These are things to think about.
This was originally posted a decade ago on Liam Scheff’s Reduce the Burden website in the USA, which is now offline, so I checked the document and think it is worth posting again.
I have uploaded an interview with Liam here.
Liam Scheff Interview on AIDS Experiments on Orphans. 4ZZZ Radio 2005
And the story he broke in 2004 which was on the BBC is here.
The AIDS Drug Experiments on Black and Hispanic Children in New York. 2004
