by Kyle Everett

Created on: February 17, 2010

The bubonic plague, also known as the Black Death, was not something to take lightly. It was hard to avoid, and deadly at the same time. This manifestation is a horrible bacterial disease that enters through a victims skin, travels through the lymphatic system causing incredible pain, and ends 80% of the time by killing the victim. Where did this all begin?
    There are many possibilities and explanations of how this plague started and spread. Yersinia Pestis is a gram-negative bacteria that is usually found in soil and many different types of land rodents. Bites from fleas were also very likely to carry this wide spread plague. After these fleas lived off of and infected a host, they could pick up this disease. This was a very easy way for the plague to spread, because many people were farmers and owned cattle or livestock to feed their family. The fleas also live on the animals; so the close interactions with the animals and how they were traded, was a major factor of why and how the plague spread so quick. The study of epidemiology, is the research of how diseases affect and disappear from a given area. It also deals with the health and illnesses of a given population. Ibn Khatima was the physician who hypothesized that infectious diseases are caused by “minute bodies” that invade a host’s body and cause a disease. The study of plagues and how diseases spread was increasing as the number of deaths throughout the world was also increasing.

    The bubonic plague did most of its tremendous damage during the 1347-1350 time period. During this time, most of Europe and Northern Africa was affected. Researchers believe that there are many different places that could be responsible for the origin of this deadly plague. One place is the Gobi Desert. It is believed that these fleas that carried the Yersinia Pestis were brought on the backs of rodents towards Europe. Another possible origin of these infected fleas and their relationship with the rodents could have started in Central Asia. This illness and the rodents that possessed it, spread along trade routes and finally reached Crimea, Ukraine in 1346. This is where the spread towards western Europe began. First it spread to Constantinople, and then struck Alexandria. Here the death toll increased to over many thousands a day. This constant rate of death increased, as it devastated the entire world. The Black Death killed over 75-100 million people in total, and dropped

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