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The estate of the Ulm city doctor Johann Franc (1649-1725) contains a previously unknown plague cure from the 18th century. It is based on the works “Auch das ein mensch zeichen gewun” by Engelin (around 1400), the “Pestbrief an die Frau von Plauen” (1366), “Der Sinn der höchsten Meister von Paris” (around 1350) and the Prague “Sendbrief” (1371). Franc compiled a new plague order in Latin from the writings available in the respective regional dialects from the period between 1349 and 1400.

How did Europe escape the \"Iron Law of Wages?\" We construct a simple Malthusian model with two sectors and multiple steady states, and use it to explain why European per capita incomes and urbanization rates increased during the period 1350-1700. Productivity growth can only explain a small fraction of the rise in output per capita. Population dynamics—changes of the birth and death schedules—were far more important determinants of steady states. We show how a major shock to population can trigger a transition to a new steady state with higher per-capita income. The Black Death was such a shock, raising wages substantially. Because of Engel's Law, demand for urban products increased, and urban centers grew in size. European cities were unhealthy, and rising urbanization pushed up aggregate death rates. This effect was reinforced by diseases spread through war, financed by higher tax revenues. In addition, rising trade also spread diseases. In this way higher wages themselves reduced population pressure. We show in a calibration exercise that our model can account for the sustained rise in European urbanization as well as permanently higher per capita incomes in 1700, without technological change. Wars contributed importantly to the \"Rise of Europe\", even if they had negative short-run effects. We thus trace Europe's precocious rise to economic riches to interactions of the plague shock with the belligerent political environment and the nature of cities.

Two distinctive regimes are distinguished in Spain over half a millennium. The first one (1270s-1590s) corresponds to a high land-labour ratio frontier economy, which is pastoral, trade-oriented, and led by towns. Wages and food consumption were relatively high. Sustained per capita growth occurred from the end of the Reconquest (1264) to the Black Death (1340s) and resumed from the 1390s only broken by late fifteenth-century turmoil. A second regime (1600s-1810s) corresponds to a more agricultural and densely populated low-wage economy which, although it grew at a pace similar to that of 1270-1600, remained at a lower level. Contrary to preindustrial western Europe, Spain achieved its highest living standards in the 1340s, not by mid-fifteenth century. Although its death toll was lower, the plague had a more damaging impact on Spain and, far from releasing non-existent demographic pressure, destroyed the equilibrium between scarce population and abundant resources. Pre-1350 per capita income was reached by the late sixteenth century but only exceeded after 1820.

Invasive alien crayfish threaten the diversity of freshwater ecosystems and native crayfish fauna. In Europe, this is largely due to transmission of the crayfish plague to susceptible native crayfish. Many invasive species tolerate crayfish plague, but the infection still has the potential to reduce the fitness of a tolerant host due to energy trade-offs between immune response maintenance and life-history traits, such as growth and reproduction. In combination with other unfavourable conditions, such a response could alter further invasion success of an otherwise successful crayfish invader. We examined whether repeated infection with one of the most virulent haplogroups of crayfish plague agent ( Aphanomyces astaci ) affects growth or survival of the juvenile marbled crayfish ( Procambarus virginalis ). Juveniles were exposed to i) two levels of pathogen concentrations, and ii) two different feeding regimes under the higher pathogen concentration. In all performed trials, repeated infection reduced growth rates, while the combination of recurring infection and food limitation significantly increased mortality. The average energy cost of the immune response was estimated at 12.07 J/day for individuals weighing 0.3 grams. Since infections were frequent and pathogen concentrations high, results suggest that marbled crayfish is resistant to A. astaci pathogen and its survival is only affected by adding the stress of food limitation. The survival of almost half of the individuals exposed to high pathogen loads and extreme food limitation indicates that chronic infection by crayfish plague is unlikely to be an important factor impeding invasion success of the marbled crayfish, even under harsh conditions. Our results add to the growing body of evidence that marbled crayfish has potential to become one of the most successful freshwater invaders.

Witness testimonies in the 1363 canonization inquest for Countess Delphine de Puimchel help us explore differing reactions to the first two waves of plague in 1348 and 1361, the diverse social and healing networks available to the sick, and the importance of affect in the healing process. Every witness in the inquest had lived through both the 1348 and 1361 epidemics. Their testimonies show that sufferers actively sought out healing even when they feared that none existed, healing practitioners continued to care for the sick through both waves of epidemic, and emotion played an important role in sufferers' healing. Their language allows us to look at the interaction between miracle and medicine, the interaction of healing practitioners, and the expectations of sufferers during severe epidemics in the later Middle Ages.

Much of the breeding range for the mountain plover (Charadrius montanus) occurs in shortgrass steppe and mixed-grass prairie in the western Great Plains of North America. Studies of mountain plovers in shortgrass steppe during the 1970s and 1990s were focused in Weld County, Colorado, which was considered a key breeding area for the species. These studies, however, did not include habitats influenced by black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) or prescribed fire. The role of these 2 rangeland disturbance processes has increased substantially over the past 15 years. During 2008–2009, I used radial distance point count surveys to estimate mountain plover densities early in the nesting season in 4 habitats on public lands in Weld County, Colorado. All 4 habitats were grazed by cattle during the growing season at moderate stocking rates but had different additional disturbances consisting of 1) dormant-season prescribed burns, 2) active black-tailed prairie dog colonies, 3) black-tailed prairie dog colonies affected by epizootic plague in the past 1–2 years, and 4) rangeland with no recent history of fire or prairie dogs. Mountain plover densities were similar on active black-tailed prairie dog colonies ( = 6.8 birds/km2, 95% CI = 4.3–10.6) and prescribed burns ( = 5.6 birds/km2, 95% CI = 3.5–9.1). In contrast, no plovers were detected at randomly selected rangeland sites grazed by cattle but lacking recent disturbance by prairie dogs or fire, even though survey effort was highest for this rangeland habitat. Mountain plover densities were intermediate (2.0 birds/km2, 95% CI = 0.8–5.0) on sites where black-tailed prairie dogs had recently been extirpated by plague. These findings suggest that prescribed burns and active black-tailed prairie dog colonies may enhance breeding habitat for mountain plovers in shortgrass steppe and illustrate the potential for suppressed or altered disturbance processes to influence habitat availability for declining wildlife species.

Pericles has impressed many readers of Thucydides as the greatest statesman of his history. After all, Thucydides describes him as “the first man among the Athenians at the time, ablest in both speaking and acting” (1.139.4). Pericles’ preeminence in Athens is reflected in his preeminence in Thucydides’ history. For example, Thucydides has Pericles deliver the most famous speech of his history, the funeral oration for the Athenians who fell in battle during the first year of the war. Thucydides here gives Pericles the privilege of describing Athens—its regime and way of life—for which it will be remembered, and

A paradox allegedly plagues systems in which money is only indirectly, not directly, convertible. Wicksell (1919) and other paradoxers have described fanciful scenarios in which the price of the redemption medium zooms off to zero (or infinity), largely because they assume that banks (or government as money issuer), instead of buying that medium as it is needed (or selling it), will draw on initially ample reserves of it (or will passively accumulate reserves in indefinite amounts). Some of them insist on the supposed paradoxicality of a spread between the market price and redemption-window \"price\" of the redemption medium when the price of the medium of account deviates from par, even though the spread and the deviation are arithmetical counterparts of each other, and although the spread serves as the trigger of corrective processes. They overlook the largely reductio ad absurdum function of scenarios in which the price of the medium of account does deviate from par.