Plague is a disease that affects humans and other mammals. It is caused by the bacterium, Yersinia pestis. Humans usually get plague after being bitten by a rodent flea that is carrying the plague bacterium or by handling an animal infected with plague. Plague is infamous for killing millions of people in Europe during the Middle Ages. Today, modern antibiotics are effective in treating plague. Without prompt treatment, the disease can cause serious illness or death. Presently, human plague infections continue to occur in the western United States, but significantly more cases occur in parts of Africa and Asia.

In October 2010, a group of European scientists claimed to have settled the debate by using DNA analysis to implicate Yersinia pestis in the outbreak. But their study did not encompass pre-1348 graves, so it is possible that the bacterium was present but not the actual killer, said Sloane. “On balance, I am suggesting we need to be more scientific and do more work before claiming we have solved the mystery,” he explained.

Genetic sequencing of DNA taken from two skeletons buried in Bavaria, Germany, in the 6th century has uncovered the complete genome of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes bubonic plague today. Bavaria was outside the Roman Empire, but records report that the disease spread beyond its borders. Analysis of beads dated one skeleton at 525 to 550, implicating the bacterium in the ancient plague (The Lancet Infectious Diseases, DOI: 10.1016/ S1473-3099(13)70323-2).

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from what was once called the Black Death. Although we

The United States is one of the many countries around the world that technically still suffers from what was once called the Black Death

Plague is caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis. Rodents, such as rats, carry the disease. It is spread by their fleas.

People can get the plague when they are bitten by a flea that carries the plague bacteria from an infected rodent. In rare cases, you may get the disease when handling an infected animal.

plague lung infection called pneumonic plague can spread from human to human

during the High Middle Ages (1000-1300)

Waste accumulated in the streets for lack of sewer systems

traced back to the Gobi Desert of Mongolia in the 1320s.

called the Black Death because one of the symptoms produced a blackening of the skin around the swellings.

Key Dates relating to the event: This terrible plague started in Europe in 1328 and lasted until 1351 although there were outbreaks for the next sixty years

buboes were red at first, but later turned a dark purple, or black.

Ring around the rosy, A pocket full of posies, Ashes … ashes, We all fall down.

A familiar nursery rhyme that children have recited as a harmless play song for generations

ironically refers to one of Europe's most devastating diseases. The bubonic plague, better known as the “The Black Death,” has existed for thousands of years. The first recorded case of the plague was in China in 224 B.C.E. But the most significant outbreak was in Europe in the mid-fourteenth century. Over a five-year period from 1347 to 1352, 25 million people died. One-third to one-half of the European population was wiped out!

“The Black Death” Even before the “death ships” pulled into port at Messina, many Europeans had heard rumors about a “Great Pestilence” that was carving a deadly path across the trade routes of the Near and Far East. (Early in the 1340s, the disease had struck China, India, Persia, Syria and Egypt.) However, they were scarcely equipped for the horrible reality of the Black Death. “In men and women alike,” the Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio wrote, “at the beginning of the malady, certain swellings, either on the groin or under the armpits…waxed to the bigness of a common apple, others to the size of an egg, some more and some less, and these the vulgar named plague-boils.” Blood and pus seeped out of these strange swellings, which were followed by a host of other unpleasant symptoms–fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, terrible aches and pains–and then, in short order, death. The Black Death was terrifyingly, indiscriminately contagious: “the mere touching of the clothes,” wrote Boccaccio, “appeared to itself to communicate the malady to the toucher.” The disease was also terrifyingly efficient. People who were perfectly healthy when they went to bed at night could be dead by morning

he Black Death

Contents “The Black Death” Understanding the Black Death God’s Punishment? Facebook Twitter Google Print Cite Article Details: Black Death Author History.com Staff Website Name History.com Year Published 2010 Title Black Death URL http://www.history.com/topics/black-death Access Date April 16, 2014 Publisher A+E Networks Introduction The Black Death arrived in Europe by sea in October 1347 when 12 Genoese trading ships docked at the Sicilian port of Messina after a long journey thro