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X Demographics
Mendeley readers
Attention Score in Context
| Title |
What caused the Black Death?
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Postgraduate Medical Journal, May 2005
|
| DOI | 10.1136/pgmj.2004.024075 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
C J Duncan, S Scott |
| Abstract |
For the whole of the 20th century it was believed that the Black Death and all the plagues of Europe (1347-1670) were epidemics of bubonic plague. This review presents evidence that this view is incorrect and that the disease was a viral haemorrhagic fever, characterised by a long incubation period of 32 days, which allowed it to be spread widely even with the limited transport of the Middle Ages. It is suggested that haemorrhagic plague emerged from its animal host in Ethiopia and struck repeatedly at European/Asian civilisations, before appearing as the Black Death. The CCR5-Delta32 mutation confers protection against HIV-1 in an average of 10% of the people of European origin today. It is suggested that all the Deltaccr5 alleles originated from a single mutation event that occurred before 1000 BC and the subsequent epidemics of haemorrhagic plague gently forced up its frequency to 5 x 10(-5) at the time of the Black Death. Epidemics of haemorrhagic plague over the next three centuries then steadily raised the frequency in Europe (but not elsewhere) to present day values. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 40 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 6 | 15% |
| Canada | 1 | 3% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 3% |
| Chad | 1 | 3% |
| Russia | 1 | 3% |
| New Zealand | 1 | 3% |
| Germany | 1 | 3% |
| Saudi Arabia | 1 | 3% |
| Ukraine | 1 | 3% |
| Other | 1 | 3% |
| Unknown | 25 | 63% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 37 | 93% |
| Scientists | 2 | 5% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 1 | 3% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 227 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Poland | 2 | <1% |
| United States | 2 | <1% |
| France | 1 | <1% |
| Argentina | 1 | <1% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | <1% |
| Iceland | 1 | <1% |
| Spain | 1 | <1% |
| Unknown | 218 | 96% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Bachelor | 55 | 24% |
| Student > Master | 23 | 10% |
| Researcher | 21 | 9% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 19 | 8% |
| Student > Postgraduate | 11 | 5% |
| Other | 36 | 16% |
| Unknown | 62 | 27% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine and Dentistry | 36 | 16% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 23 | 10% |
| Social Sciences | 20 | 9% |
| Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 15 | 7% |
| Arts and Humanities | 14 | 6% |
| Other | 50 | 22% |
| Unknown | 69 | 30% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 326. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 14 March 2024.
All research outputs
#105,340
of 25,901,238 outputs
Outputs from Postgraduate Medical Journal
#13
of 3,287 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#79
of 70,903 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Postgraduate Medical Journal
#1
of 19 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,901,238 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,287 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.9. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 70,903 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 19 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its contemporaries.