Wikipedia: Black Death

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The Black Death or bubonic plague is a dreaded disease that has spread in pandemic several times through history. Often the term "Black Death" is used specifically to refer to the devastating outbreak of the plague in Europe in the 14th century. Most scientists believe that this plague was caused by a bacterium (Yersinia pestis) which was spread by fleas? with the help of animals like the [black rat]? ([Rattus rattus]?). Recently some scientists (anybody remember their names ?) proposed that it might have been caused by Ebola?-like virus, not any bacteria. Their rationale is that this plague spread much faster and incubation period was much shorter than in plagues caused by Yersinia pestis, it also took place in completely ratless areas like Iceland, it was transfered between humans (which happens rarely with Yersinia pestis) and some genes that determine immunity to Ebola-like viruses are much more widespread in Europe than in other parts of the world, what could be caused by suchlike epidemic. Moreover finding of Yersinia pestis spores? in some corpses of people who died in Black Death (which city it was?), which was previously concluded to be final evidence for Yersinia pestis theory, was never confirmed in any other cemetery.

There are counter-argumants to this theory, however. Historical examples of pandemics of other diseases in populations not previously exposed, such as smallpox and tuberculosis amongst American Indians, show that because there is no inherited adaptation to the disease, its course in the first epidemic is faster and far more virulent than amongst the descendents of survivors. The middle east and far East were affected equally badly (as the Rihla of Ibn Battuta testifies), so the prevalence of immunity genes specifically in Europeans is curious: and the plague returned again and again through succeeding centuries into modern times when the Yersinia bacterium was identified.

There is evidence that there were outbreaks in the 800s in Europe. The last major outbreak occurred during the 18th century. The plague still exists but can nowadays be treated effectively with antibiotics. The major epidemic occurred in the middle of the 14th century.

It is not entirely clear where this epidemic started, but it was probably somewhere around the northern parts of India. It then spread west to the Middle East. The plague was imported to Europe by the way of the Crimea?, where the Genoese? colony Kaffa (Feodosiya) was besieged by the Mongols. Myth (or history?) says that the Mongols catapulted infected cadavers into the city. The refugees from Kaffa then took the plague along to Genoa, around 1347?. Some ships that arrived didn't have anyone alive when they reached their port. From Italy the disease spread clockwise around Europe, hitting France, Spain, Britain, Germany and finally Scandinavia around 1350?.

The information about the death toll varies wildly from source to source, but it is estimated that about a third of the population of Europe died from the outbreak in the mid-1300s. Approximately 25 million deaths occurred in Europe alone with many others occurring in Africa and Asia. Some villages were deserted with the few survivors fleeing and spreading the disease further. The great population loss brought economic changes based on lack of available workers.