What pathogen caused the "Black Death" in medieval Europe and the rest of the civilised world?

Question

Being civilised, the pestilence is passed from person to person. Or by a vector?

What is taught at school?

Answer 1

they used to be fairly sure that the Black Death was caused by the same Bacterium as Bubonic Plague that was spread by fleas from Rats.

The idea that the Black Death was Bubonic Plague was put forth at the start of the 20th Centurey by a researcher studying an outbreak of plague in Hong Kong.

Recently however, some scientists have begun to question that view, because the symptons don't make sense.

Now it is suspected by some authorities that the Black Death was in fact a disease like Small Pox or Ebola (a haemorrhagic fever).

In my sources below you can read more about this.

Answer 2

Probably Yersinia pestis, but perhaps not. Usually the disease is carried by the fleas that live on the rats, so the rats die first. And when they do so, they first get sort of crazy, come out of their holes and dance in the streets. If there had been dancing rats, some of the many accounts of the Great Death would report it, but none does. And another point: When the pestilence is spread in that usual way, it does not move with the enormous speed it had in the fourteenth century. This is known from observations in modern India. Of course it is possible to give the disease directly via air from one human being to another. In that case no rats are involved and the speed of spreading can increase awfully. So one does not really know. Perhaps it was a different kind of pestilence. Some scientists think it was anthrax.

Answer 3

HEy man Yersinia pestis is what causes bubonic, septicaemic and pneumonic plague, which is what they reckon the great plague was mainly. Spot on with the vector, rats lived all over the shop in those days, and fleas were the main agent in the transcommunicability of the bug. Y. pestis is a tiny G-ve pathogenic coccus looking bug, which is pretty easy to avoid nowadays what with antibiotics and better sanitation. They still gots the plague in some countries, particularly south east asia and all.
mert

Answer 4

In Medieval England, the Black Death was to kill 1.5 million people out of an estimated total of 4 million people between 1348 and 1350. No medical knowledge existed in Medieval England to cope with the disease. After 1350, it was to strike England another six times by the end of the century. Understandably, peasants were terrified at the news that the Black Death might be approaching their village or town.

The Black Death is the name given to a disease called the bubonic plague which was rampant during the Fourteenth Century. In fact, the bubonic plague affected England more than once in that century but its impact on English society from 1348 to 1350 was terrible. No amount of medical knowledge could help England when the bubonic plague struck. It was also to have a major impact on England’s social structure which lead to the Peasants Revolt of 1381.

The Black Death was caused by fleas carried by rats that were very common in towns and cities. The fleas bit into their victims literally injecting them with the disease. Death could be very quick for the weaker victims.

Answer 5

The Bubonic plague, spread by a peddler selling bolts of cloth, infested with fleas, was devastating. Its outbreak around 1670 in Europe spread like wildfire. By the time of it's second outbreak, the human body was already fighting the disease, and had started building an immunity to the disease. Modern day scientists are researching the immunity as we speak. They have found that the immunity has been passed down through the generations from the people who were originally exposed, and their bodies built up this immunity. They have found it to be working in the fight against the A.I.D.S. virus. There is a project called the DNA project. For a fee, you will get a packet to collect a dna sample and send it in. As more people contribute to this cause, genealogists can track your ancestors easier, but more importantly, the people who are carriers of the cells with the plague fighting immunity will be found, and more serum will be readily available for everyone.

Answer 6

"The Black Death, or Black Plague, was a devastating pandemic that began in south-western Asia and spread to Europe by the late 1340s, where it got the name Black Death. It killed between a third and two-thirds of Europe's population and, including Middle Eastern lands, India and China, killed at least 75 million people. The same disease is thought to have returned to Europe every generation with varying degrees of intensity and fatality until the 1700s. Notable later outbreaks include the Italian Plague of 1629-1631, the Great Plague of London (1665–1666), the Great Plague of Vienna (1679), the Great Plague of Marseilles in 1720–1722 and the 1771 plague in Moscow. There is some controversy over the identity of the disease, but in its virulent form seems to have disappeared from Europe in the 18th century.

The Black Death had a drastic effect on Europe's population, irrevocably changing Europe's social structure. It was a serious blow to the Roman Catholic Church, Europe's predominant religious institution at the time, and resulted in widespread persecution of minorities such as Jews, Muslims, foreigners, beggars and lepers. The uncertainty of daily survival created a general mood of morbidity influencing people to live for the moment, as illustrated by Giovanni Boccaccio in The Decameron (1353).

The initial fourteenth-century European event was called the "Great Mortality" by contemporary writers and, with later outbreaks, became known as the 'Black Death'. It has been popularly thought that the name came from a striking symptom of the disease, called acral necrosis, in which sufferers' skin would blacken due to subdermal haemorrhages. However, the term refers in fact to the figurative sense of "black" (glum, lugubrious or dreadful).[1]

Because the Black Death was, according to historical accounts, characterised by buboes (swellings in the groin), like the late 19th century Asian Bubonic plague, scientists and historians assumed at the beginning of the twentieth century that the Black Death was an outbreak of the same disease, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and spread by fleas with the help of animals like the black rat (Rattus rattus). However, buboes are a feature of other diseases as well and this view is now widely questioned."

Answer 7

The bubonic plague (Black Death) caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and spread by fleas with the help of animals like the black rat. However, buboes are a feature of other diseases as well and this view is now widely questioned

Answer 8

The thing that always causes it is rodents? Rats, mice. with a germ or plague, however sewers uncleaned and standing water causes all terrible plights and germs. The fact that the water was impure and that the sewage was in the streets and just laying there with rats eating away at garbage did not take long for it to become the Black Death.

Answer 9

The Bubonic Plague

Answer 10

It's a little uncertain exactly what the 'Black Death' was, as the record-keeping at that time was of such poor quality.

It is usually assumed to have been caused by b. pestis, but some authorities are more inclined to believe it was b. anthrasis, giving rise to the name 'Black Death'.

I understand that the vector is 'droplet infection'.