Added: 22-02-2012 23:37:10

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(10/30/2002) In September 1665, a tailor in the peaceful English village of Eyam opened a shipment of fabric from London. Unfurling the flea-ridden cloth, he unleashed a strain of one of the world's deadliest diseases. In a matter of days, much — but not all — of the village was suffering from the tell-tale signs of bubonic plague, the disease that had, over the course of 400 years, already wiped out more than half of the European population. Three hundred and fifty years later, geneticist Stephen O'Brien delves into the reasons why some individuals managed to survive the excruciating Black Death while others were dying all around them. MYSTERY OF THE BLACK DEATH paints a grim portrait of life at the height of an epidemic, and follows O'Brien as he uses historical records, family archives, and modern genetics to conduct a case study that uncovers previously unknown elements of the scourge — and its mysterious link to HIV immunity in today's population.

Tags: PBS Secrets Black Death

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