Rose Pox

A highly contagious disease that causes small lesions and constricts the lungs.

pathogen

apple pox

There are only a handful of people who don't contract the disease. That seems to be hereditary.

Hot and extra wet years seem to make it worse

The poor get it easier than the wealthy

The larvae of the tiny orchard fly can grow a fungus on their back that causes the disease. These larvae are so small that sometimes they are ingested by accident when the bad spots on apples and rose hips are not cut off. As it aspirates into the lungs the fungus can grow and the victim will breathe out spores, infecting anyone nearby. the spores can also stay alive on most woods and natural fiber. Only Blue Oak and Highland Pine, unsealed or unvarnished, will give off fumes that kill the fungus. Everything you touch has to be burned.

Pox start forming around the nose and mouth and anus. Then people have trouble breathing.

No visual impairment

In the late stages as breathing becomes difficult people get delirious.

blisters on the mouth, nose, anus. bluish tongue.

kids tend to die within 5 days, adolescents within 7-9 days, adults can last 10-14 days and the elderly or infirmed die within 5 days.

90% deadly

Birds like the Raven, razor-toothed finch, sparrow, common blue-winged hummingbird eat the flies and lice, keeping the bugs at bay. Some orchards also use heavy smoke from the Blue Oak or Highland Pine during the spring blossoming to prevent the fly eggs from hatching.

blisters are always the first sign, then blue tongue.

no treatment yet. Victims are quarantined in a room built of Blue Oak or Highland Pine. Everything else has to be burned.

tea of elderflower, yarrow, white willow bark, and catnip help with the fever. Willow bark and cloves help with the pain.

none

botany

fairly rare now, birds are encouraged in rose gardens and orchards. Smoking the flowers keeps the bugs at bay, so case are rare now.

Dangers of defying the gods.

No one knows

It had been recorded the same for hundreds of years.

There was a special room at most castles for people who had the pox. After you died everything you touched had to be burned. The exception was Blue Oak and Highland Pine. If those woods weren't covered in resin or paint, they would not spread the pox. The room at the castle had floors and beds of Blue Oak and walls and ceiling of Highland Pine. It was uncommon now to get it, now that the ravens kept the lice in check, and the smoke from burning Blue Oak near the gardens killed the lice.