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Related: About this forumTrending Science: Rats may not be to blame for the Black Death
A new study suggests human parasites were responsible for the spread of the plague and that the rat may have got a bad rap!
Trending Science: Rats may not be to blame for the Black Death © Gallinago_media, Shutterstock
Rattus rattus (the domestic rat) has long been blamed for being the vector of plague outbreaks of which killed millions of people across medieval Europe and Asia with some occurring as recently as the 19th century. A break out in the 1340s killed 25 million people in Europe alone. The cause of plague wasn't discovered until the most recent global outbreak, which started in China in 1855 and didn't officially end until 1959.
A study just published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science lifts the responsibility for the spread of the disease from rats, pointing the finger at human parasites, such as fleas and body lice, for spreading the bacteria during what is known as the Second Pandemic. This is term given to a series of outbreaks ranging from 1300s to 1800s, including what has been etched into our collective consciousness the Black Death. Killing a third of the population in Europe, the domestic rat has been in the frame for that catastrophe.
But what if that wasnt accurate and the creature we have come to associate with the devastation wasnt actually to blame? The National Geographic quotes the study's lead author Katharine Dean, a doctoral research fellow at the University of Oslos Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis. The plague really transformed human history, so its really important to understand how it was spreading and why it was spreading so fast.
The case for the rat's defence
The team modeled three simulations of outbreaks in the nine European cities for which there is good mortality data. One was based on rats as vectors, another on air-based transmission and the last on fleas and lice living on humans. In seven out of eight models, the human parasitic model mirrored the pattern of the spread most accurately. They maintain the conclusion is very clear, It would be unlikely to spread as fast as it did if it was transmitted by rats. It would have to go through this extra loop of the rats, rather than being spread from person to person, the BBC reports Prof Nils Stenseth, based at the University of Oslo.
More:
https://cordis.europa.eu/news/rcn/128779_en.html?WT.mc_id=RSS-Feed&WT.rss_f=news&WT.rss_a=128779&WT.rss_ev=a
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Trending Science: Rats may not be to blame for the Black Death (Original Post)
Judi Lynn
Mar 2018
OP
Beakybird
(3,333 posts)1. Those rats need to get a lawyer!
I'm thinking class action, defamation.
Javaman
(62,534 posts)2. the few accurate accounts from that time...
describe scenes of fleas being so plentiful, you scoop up handfuls at a time. Blech.
SCantiGOP
(13,874 posts)3. I thought I read another take on this months ago
I think they identified a different mammal as the culprit.