2005 Press Releases
A Deadly Nursery Rhyme
Children still sing it during play and there's hardly an adult anywhere in the world who doesn't know it. For all that, the innocent nursery rhyme, "Ring a Ring a Rosie", has a chilling side to it.
It was, in fact, more an anthem for the dying and the dead during the bubonic plague of the 14th century than a charming ditty for children. The "rosie" mentioned in the rhyme was actually describing the red ring that appeared on the skin after a person had been bitten by the rat-borne fleas that brought the plague to Ireland and elsewhere, and as the disease progressed from bubonic to pneumonic plague, it was characterised by incessant sneezing before death, again, reflected in the rhyme by the words: "Atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down." And if you ever wondered what the "pocket full of posies" really meant, look no further than the scented hankerchiefs used by doctors and others to hide the hideous smell as they approached the stricken.
This is just one of the fascinating insights which Dr Paddy Sleeman of UCC's Department of Zoology, Ecology and Plant Science, will offer during a lecture titled Jumping Germs: The Effects of Animal Disease on Culture which he will deliver on Wednesday, January 19th next as part of The Last Lecture Series, organised by the Science Faculty, UCC, to mark Cork's European Capital of Culture 2005 designation. Throughout the year, a series of distinguished speakers will discuss everything from Moore's Law to suicide, the assassination of JFK from a medical perspective, the risky business of being human, the points race, the cosmos and whether or not science has replaced religion.
Each speaker has been asked by the organiser, Professor William Reville, to treat his lecture as if it were the last one he will ever give, hence the title of the series, and as always, admission is free and the public is invited to attend what promises to be a very special and thought provoking series in the months ahead.
For many years, Dr Sleeman has studied zoonoses, another name for the germs that jump from animals to man, such as the plague, which surprisingly appeared even in frosty Iceland. How could that have happened? The answer, says Dr Sleeman, is that the wooden ships plying their trade were also warm repositories of food -ideal for the black rat and its passenger fleas which spread the disease. They simply jumped ship when it arrived in port.
The lecture will also look at the question of Bovine TB and whether or not the term itself is a misnomer. Dr Sleeman has some very interesting things to say on how the disease is transferred. Do we get it from cattle or do they get it from us? And if badgers are carriers of TB, could the same vaccination approach which wiped out rabies in Ireland in the early 1900s, finally put an end to a modern plague which has so far defied the best efforts of the experts? Its victims have included St Theresa of Lisieux, D.H. Lawrence, George Orwell and Vivien Leigh.
Another poser. what did J.M. Synge mean when he wrote in the Playboy of the Western World of Seánín "growing wicked like a maddening dog"? or of the "quare fellow goin mad"? "The Playboy," says Dr Sleeman, "is full of references to rabies and dog-borne disease. Synge, he adds, was accurately reporting the conditions he saw all around him at the time. Even the Reformation in Europe, he contends, was helped along by the plague, against which the established Church was helpless. In such circumstances, the usually unquestioning faithful turned elsewhere for answers and in particular to Martin Luther. The point, Dr Sleeman says, is that even if we don't realise it, our culture is inextricably linked with the great disease events down the years and this is demonstrated in all sorts of ways, including the nursery rhyme.
The lecture takes place on Wednesday, 19 January, 8pm, Boole IV Lecture Theatre. Admission is free and all are welcome.
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