Europe’s Plagues Came From China, Study Finds

[Judi Lynn]

October 31, 2010
Europe’s Plagues Came From China, Study Finds
By NICHOLAS WADE

The great waves of plague that twice devastated Europe and changed the course of history had their origins in China, a team of medical geneticists reported Sunday, as did a third plague outbreak that struck less harmfully in the 19th century.

And in separate research, a team of biologists reported conclusively this month that the causative agent of the most deadly plague, the Black Death, was the bacterium known as Yersinia pestis. This agent had always been the favored cause, but a vigorous minority of biologists and historians have argued the Black Death differed from modern cases of plague studied in India, and therefore must have had a different cause.

The Black Death began in Europe in 1347 and carried off an estimated 30 percent or more of the population of Europe. For centuries the epidemic continued to strike every 10 years or so, its last major outbreak being the Great Plague of London from 1665 to 1666. The disease is spread by rats and transmitted to people by fleas or, in some cases, directly by breathing.

One team of biologists, led by Barbara Bramanti of the Institut Pasteur in Paris and Stephanie Haensch of Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany, analyzed ancient DNA and proteins from plague pits, the mass burial grounds across Europe in which the dead were interred. Writing in the journal PLoS Pathogens this month, they say their findings put beyond doubt that the Black Death was brought about by Yersinia pestis.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/health/01plague.html?_r=1&ref=europe

[JDPriestly]

1. And we are totally dependent on China for all the junk and even

food we import from there. Go figure. Rats abound. Our cities have less and less money to provide for sanitation services. After all, sanitation services are not sexy, not at all.

And people are worried about terrorist bombs?

We are on a ship of fools.

[kestrel91316]

2. Endemic plague exists right here in the desert southwest of the US.

Ground squirrels on the outskirts of Los Angeles turn up with it routinely. And our local "roof rats", an imported species, are the plague rats of the European Dark Ages.

We don't need to fear China when it comes to plague - our own lack of public health infrastructure, and education, and sanitation will eventually allow it to grow right here at home.

[ishaneferguson]

3. A watch cat - or guard cat - will handle mice -NT

[kestrel91316]

4. And when that cat catches plagues from rat fleas, and gets ill and goes to the vet, the vet just

might contract pneumonic plague and start the ball rolling.

A vet in CO almost died of pneumonic plague from a sick cat several years ago. We do think about these things in my line of work.....

[ishaneferguson]

5. When it comes to fighting plague

We treat cats like 18 year old Lance Corporals in Afghanistan.

[Odin2005]

6. The Mongols brought it from China to Europe.

The Mongols got some Genoan mercenaries infected during fighting in Genoa's colony in the Crimea, supposedly by throwing dead infected bodies into the city with catapults. From there it was brought back to Italy and spread from there.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. What about the plagues of 541-750? nt