The Black Plague

Rats weren't the carriers of the plague after all. A study by an archaeologist looking at the ravages of the Black Death in London, in late 1348 and 1349, has exonerated the most famous animal villains in history.

"The evidence just isn't there to support it," said Barney Sloane, author of The Black Death in London. "We ought to be finding great heaps of dead rats in all the waterfront sites but they just aren't there. And all the evidence I've looked at suggests the plague spread too fast for the traditional explanation of transmission by rats and fleas. It has to be person to person - there just isn't time for the rats to be spreading it."

He added: "It was certainly the Black Death but it is by no means certain what that disease was, whether in fact it was bubonic plague."

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The plague disease, caused by Yersinia pestis, is endemic in populations of ground rodents in central Asia, but it is not entirely clear where the fourteenth century pandemic started. The most popular theory places the first cases in the steppes of central Asia, though some speculate that it originated around northern India. From there, supposedly, it was carried east and west by traders and Mongol armies along the Silk Road, and was first exposed to Europe at trading ports in Sicily.

Whether or not this theory is accurate, it is clear that several pre-existing conditions such as war, famine, and weather contributed to the severity of the Black Death. A devastating civil war in China between the established Chinese population and the Mongols raged between 1205 and 1353. This war disrupted farming and trading patterns, and led to episodes of widespread famine. A so-called "Little Ice Age" had begun at the end of the thirteenth century. The disastrous weather reached a peak in the first half of the fourteenth century with severe results worldwide.

In the years 1315 to 1322, a catastrophic famine, known as the Great Famine, struck all of Northern Europe. Read more...

Until recently, it was not certain whether the bacterium Yersinia pestis -- known to cause the plague today -- was responsible for that most deadly outbreak of disease ever.

Previous genetic tests indicating that the bacterium was present in medieval samples had previously been dismissed as contaminated by modern DNA or the DNA of bacteria in the soil.

The international team of researchers has for the first time been able to decode a circular genome important for explaining the virulence of Y. pestis.

The researchers were also able to show that the plague DNA from the London cemetery was indeed medieval. Read more...

Despite the long-held assumption by historians that Europe's Black Death of 1347 to 1351 killed indiscriminately, a new report by University at Albany anthropologist Sharon DeWitte and Pennsylvania State University researcher James Wood finds that the deadly plaque targeted the already ill and weak.

Researchers examined a total of 490 skeletons from the East Smithfield cemetery in London -- set up to bury victims of the Black Death -- to test whether mortality associated with the outbreak of the Black Death was selective with response to preexisting health conditions. Read more...

An international team -- led by researchers at McMaster University and the University of Tubingen in Germany -- has sequenced the entire genome of the Black Death, one of the most devastating epidemics in human history.

In a separate study published recently, the team described a novel methodological approach to pull out tiny degraded DNA fragments of the causative agent of the Black Death, and showed that a specific variant of the Yersinia pestis bacterium, was responsible for the plague that killed 50 million Europeans between 1347 and 1351.

"The genomic data show that this bacterial strain, or variant, is the ancestor of all modern plagues we have today worldwide. Every outbreak across the globe today stems from a descendant of the medieval plague," explains Poinar. "With a better understanding of the evolution of this deadly pathogen, we are entering a new era of research into infectious disease." Read more...

Coming out of the East, the Black Death reached the shores of Italy in the spring of 1348 unleashing a rampage of death across Europe unprecedented in recorded history. By the time the epidemic played itself out three years later, anywhere between 25% and 50% of Europe's population had fallen victim to the pestilence.

Having no defense and no understanding of the cause of the pestilence, the men, women and children caught in its onslaught were bewildered, panicked, and finally devastated.

"The symptoms were not the same as in the East, where a gush of blood from the nose was the plain sign of inevitable death; but it began both in men and women with certain swellings in the groin or under the armpit. They grew to the size of a small apple or an egg, more or less, and were vulgarly called tumours. In a short space of time these tumours spread from the two parts named all over the body. Soon after this the symptoms changed and black or purple spots appeared on the arms or thighs or any other part of the body, sometimes a few large ones, sometimes many little ones. Read more...

Victims had no idea what had caused the disease. Neither did the physicians in the Middle Ages. The most that could be done was that various concoctions of herbs might be administered to relieve the symptoms - there was no known cure. Headaches were relieved by rose, lavender, sage and bay. Sickness or nausea was treated with wormwood, mint, and balm. Lung problems were treated with liquorice and comfrey. Vinegar was used as a cleansing agent as it was believed that it would kill disease. But bloodletting was commonly thought to be one of the best ways to treat the plague. The blood that exuded was black, thick and vile smelling with a greenish scum mixed in it.

It is widely believed that Bristol was the place where the Black Death first reached England. The plague reached England during the summer months between June and August. The Back Death reached London by 1st November 1348. London was a crowded, bustling city with a population of around 70,000. The sanitation in London was poor and living conditions were filthy. The River Thames brought more ships and infection to London which spread to the rest of England. The crowded, dirty living conditions of the English cities led to the rapid spread of the disease. Church records that the actual deaths in London were approximately 20,000. Between 1348 and 1350, killed about 30 - 40% of the population of England which at the time was estimated to be about five to six million. Many people were thrown into open communal pits. The oldest, youngest and poorest died first. Whole villages and towns in England simply ceased to exist after the Black Death.

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This Black Death was not just an endemic, but a medieval pandemic. It is one of the major events in history, that caused death in epic proportions. Read more...

The Black Death lingered on for centuries, particularly in cities. Outbreaks included the Great Plague of London (1665-66), in which one in five residents died. Read more...

Since the 1980s, several researchers have blamed other diseases, including anthrax and typhus, for the plague. The argument claims that other diseases spread more easily between people without the required flea vector and can display similar symptoms. Read more...

During the 14th century, when the plague struck Europe, even doctors were unsure what was happening. Jupiter, Mars and Saturn were in alignment - did that have something to do with the pestilence? Could that event cause an imbalance within a human body? Read more...

There were three types of plague called bubonic, pneumonic and septicemic. People affected by bubonic types have the lymph notes, neck, groin and armpits most affected. Headaches, vomiting, fevers are the symptoms of this disease. In the cases of pneumonic deceases, the affected person will have the symptoms of reddish bloody and slimy sputum. The septicemic variety will have the markings of DIC (skin turning purple). Read more...

Timeline The Black Death ...type(i) ...type (ii) ...type (iii) ...type(iv) ....type (v)

A research team led by Ron Fouchier at Rotterdam's Erasmus Medical Centre said in September it had created a mutant version of the H5N1 bird flu virus that could for the first time be spread among mammals.

The announcement led to fears the mutant virus could find its way into nature or that the publication of the research on how the virus was mutated could be used by terrorists.

"In a laboratory, it was possible to change the H5N1 into a virus ... that can easily be spread through the air. This process (mutation) could also happen naturally," Fouchier said.

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