Talk:WikiJournal of Medicine/The Year of the Elephant

Peer review 1
I received this peer review by email from Stephen Berger, and I've gotten permission to upload it to here. It was from an @gideononline.com address, consistent with his presentation at that website: gideon team. Mikael Häggström (discuss • contribs) 16:18, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It was received 2015-02-10, and applies to the same version of the article as the peer review above: . Mikael Häggström (discuss • contribs) 08:30, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Peer review 2
{{review The Year of the Elephant offers extensive evidence to suggest that the "elephant war epidemic" (if not an act of divine intervention) represented a local epidemic of Variola major. As a physician, I find the authors' analysis to be extremely methodical, well researched and compelling. Smallpox had already been well-described and documented prior to the birth of the Prophet Mohammed, and in Middle- and Near-East, regions where high-volume movement of disease vectors, reservoir animals and infected humans were inevitable. The possible role of birds in this outbreak is fascinating. In the 21st century, birds continue to directly or indirectly disseminate a wide variety of infectious diseases. The most recent episodes have included a tragic invasion of North America by West Nile virus which began in 1999, and several subsequent outbreaks of Avian Influenza among humans. As noted by the authors, flocks of birds and their excreta may also act as fertile breeding grounds for a variety of rodents, insects, ticks, mites, etc which can spread disease into local human populations. In later years, smallpox virus was deliberately employed as an agent of bioterrorism – first in the fifteenth century by the armies of Pizarro against Native populations of South America, and later by the British against Natives during the French and Indian Wars (1754 to 1767). Although human smallpox was eliminated almost four decades ago, several armies continue to vaccinate their soldiers for fear of future military use of the virus. The authors have supported their assertion that The Year of the Elephant was most likely associated with an outbreak of smallpox. An increasing number of smallpox-related viruses have been described in humans in recent years, most associated with animal contact. Cases of human infection by Buffalopox, Monkeypox, Orf, Tanapox, Cantagalo virus, Aracatuba virus, and Passatempo virus have added a long list which began with Smallpox and Vaccinia viruses. All too often, analyses of divine events fail to account for errors which occur during the translation of religious texts into English. Marr, Hubbard and Cathey have been careful to examine the original Arabic sources in their analysis. Clinical discriptions of the disease in question are also discussed, as are geographic and political events of the time. About the reviewer: Stephen Berger is an internist specializing in Tropical Diseases. He is Director of Geographic Medicine at the Tel Aviv Medical Center, and Associate Professor of Medicine (Emeritus) at Tel Aviv University. His publications include 190 peer review papers and seven books, and a series of 423 e-books in the field of Infectious Diseases. Conflicts of interest: none
 * reviewer = Stephen Berger
 * Q = Q106505116
 * version = https://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Wikiversity_Journal_of_Medicine/The_Year_of_the_Elephant&oldid=1378273
 * date = 2015-02-10
 * Divine events associated with any religion will invariably be interpreted as "gospel", eg, occurring exactly as related in holy scripture; or "allegorical", ie explainable on the basis of rationality / science (physical events, hallucination, regional politics, hidden motives of the author, etc). Thus, the proscription of pork among Jews and Moslems could be dismissed as fear of trichinosis or an attempt by ancient cattle ranchers to promote their business interests.