Bubonic plague is an infection spread mostly to humans by infected fleas that travel on rodents. Called the Black Death, it killed millions of Europeans during the Middle Ages. Prevention doesn't include a vaccine, but does involve reducing your exposure to mice, rats, squirrels and other animals that may be infected.
the bite of infected vector fleas. unprotected contact with infectious bodily fluids or contaminated materials. the inhalation of respiratory droplets/small particles from a patient with pneumonic plague.
Plague pandemics hit the world in three waves from the 1300s to the 1900s and killed millions of people. The first wave, called the Black Death in Europe, was from 1347 to 1351. The second wave in the 1500s saw the emergence of a new virulent strain of the disease.
Without prompt treatment, the disease can cause serious illness or death. Presently, human plague infections continue to occur in rural areas in the western United States, but significantly more cases occur in parts of Africa and Asia.
Worldwide, between 1,000 and 2,000 cases each year are reported to the World Health Organization (WHO), though the true number is likely much higher.
The plague is a very serious illness, but is treatable with antibiotics, usually taken for seven to 14 days. Left untreated, people can still die from the plague.
Most people died two to seven days after initial infection. Freckle-like spots and rashes, which could have been caused by flea-bites, were identified as another potential sign of plague.
Black Death, pandemic that ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351, taking a proportionately greater toll of life than any other known epidemic or war up to that time.
Epidemics occurred in port cities. The last urban plague epidemic in the United States occurred in Los Angeles from 1924 through 1925. Plague then spread from urban rats to rural rodent species, and became entrenched in many areas of the western United States.
The eventual weakening of the pandemic was likely due to the practice of quarantining infected people that originated in Venice in the 15th century and is with us to this day. Improved sanitation, personal hygiene, and medical practices also played a role in ultimately slowing the plague's terror march.
Up to 60 percent of the population succumbed to the bacteria called Yersinia pestis during outbreaks that recurred for 500 years. The most famous outbreak, the Black Death, earned its name from a symptom: lymph nodes that became blackened and swollen after bacteria entered through the skin.
Plague vaccines ** have been used since the late 19th century, but their effectiveness has never been measured precisely. Field experience indicates that vaccination with plague vaccine reduces the incidence and severity of disease resulting from the bite of infected fleas.
That makes it worse in absolute terms than most influenza pandemics in history, except 1918's; worse than the seven cholera pandemics of the 19th and early 20th century; but much less bad than HIV, 1918, or the Black Death and associated bubonic plague outbreaks.
Are mice and rats really dangerous? According to health statistics, rodents such as mice and rats are known carriers of 70 deadly diseases. In fact, in the last century, 10 million deaths were recorded as a result of rodent-borne diseases.
Many people believe that cats help prevent the spread of bubonic plague by killing the rats that can harbor the disease. In reality, they can help spread it. This plague, also called the Black Death, is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis.
Cholera, bubonic plague, smallpox, and influenza are some of the most brutal killers in human history. And outbreaks of these diseases across international borders, are properly defined as pandemic, especially smallpox, which throughout history, has killed between 300-500 million people in its 12,000 year existence.
The first person to treat the bubonic plague was a man named Alexandre Yersin. Yersin first cultured the bacteria in 1894. In 1895, he worked with Émile Roux, Albert Calmette and Amédée Borrel and the treatment was given to patients in 1896.
1. Bubonic Plague. Bubonic Plague is a potentially fatal infectious disease caused by the bacterium, Yersinia pestis. Throughout centuries, the disease has erupted several times in different eras, claiming between ten and millions of lives worldwide.
Despite the limitations of the available data, Russell concluded that age did have an effect on Black Death mortality; he argued that older men were particularly susceptible (although individuals over the age of 60 apparently fared better than those in their late 50s), and children between the ages of ten and fifteen ...
However, one study has indicated that children are more likely to have swelling in the cervical and armpit areas. During the period of history known as the Black Death epidemic, when the bubonic plague killed about one-third of European people, the mortality rate of children was exceptionally high.
Bubonic plague is the most common form of plague. This occurs when an infected flea bites a person or when materials contaminated with Y. pestis enter through a break in a person's skin. Patients develop swollen, tender lymph glands (called buboes) and fever, headache, chills, and weakness.
Today, scientists understand that the Black Death, now known as the plague, is spread by a bacillus called Yersinia pestis. (The French biologist Alexandre Yersin discovered this germ at the end of the 19th century.)
Patients develop fever, chills, extreme weakness, abdominal pain, shock, and possibly bleeding into the skin and other organs. Skin and other tissues may turn black and die, especially on fingers, toes, and the nose.
What is the plague called today? Today we still use the word “plague” to mean illness caused by Yersinia pestis. Usually, we also call it by the specific type of plague it is — bubonic, septicemic or pneumonic.
While challenging to directly compare, it is likely that COVID-19 will not eventuate as the most damaging pandemic to society, both historically and in the modern age. The other pandemics discussed herein have had significant impacts on societies globally, with larger rates of infection and mortality.