Abstract This article responds to Philip Slavin’s ‘Out of the West: Formation of a Permanent Plague Reservoir in South-Central Germany (1349–1356) and Its Implications’. Genetics has transformed the study of plague, one of the most lethal diseases in human history. But this technically demanding science raises questions of what constitutes valid evidence and supportable argument when examining historical phenomena at a microscopic level. Slavin argues that two new lineages of Yersinia pestis, the causative organism of plague, were seeded in central Germany following the Black Death; appearing sequentially, one lineage caused plague outbreaks in the 1350s and early 1360s, only to retreat and be replaced by a second lineage. Here, evidence is adduced to support the early central European proliferation of one lineage of Y. pestis, but also to suggest that the second lineage arose simultaneously in a different locale, outside Europe and within different epidemiological parameters. Because of the inherent rarity of biological evidence, the reconstruction of epidemiological phenomena will always require consilience with archaeological and documentary sources. Establishing ‘best practices’ of analysis and verification in this emerging multidisciplinary field has implications not only for Europe’s four hundred-year experience with plague, but for all fields of global health history.

中文翻译：

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走出东方（或北方或南方）：对菲利普斯拉文的回应

摘要 本文回应菲利普斯拉文的“走出西方：德国中南部永久瘟疫水库的形成（1349-1356）及其影响”。遗传学改变了鼠疫的研究，鼠疫是人类历史上最致命的疾病之一。但是，当在微观层面研究历史现象时，这种技术要求很高的科学提出了什么构成有效证据和可支持论点的问题。斯拉文认为，在黑死病之后，在德国中部播种了两种新的鼠疫耶尔森菌（鼠疫病原体）。依次出现，一个谱系在 1350 年代和 1360 年代初期引起鼠疫爆发，但后来撤退并被第二个谱系所取代。在此，有证据支持鼠疫耶尔森氏菌一种谱系的早期中欧扩散，但也表明第二个谱系同时出现在欧洲以外的不同地区和不同的流行病学参数内。由于生物学证据固有的稀有性，流行病学现象的重建总是需要与考古和文献资料相一致。在这个新兴的多学科领域建立分析和验证的“最佳实践”不仅对欧洲四百年的鼠疫经验有影响，而且对全球卫生历史的所有领域都有影响。流行病学现象的重建总是需要与考古和文献资料相一致。在这个新兴的多学科领域建立分析和验证的“最佳实践”不仅对欧洲四百年的鼠疫经验有影响，而且对全球卫生历史的所有领域都有影响。流行病学现象的重建总是需要与考古和文献资料相一致。在这个新兴的多学科领域建立分析和验证的“最佳实践”不仅对欧洲四百年的鼠疫经验有影响，而且对全球卫生历史的所有领域都有影响。