INfo or websites.
2007-01-29 06:14:15 · 4 answers · asked by egorgitza 2 in Health ➔ Diseases & Conditions ➔ Infectious Diseases
Hey ! That's crazy, I was just looking this up yesterday after a discussion with someone at work ! Coincidence !
I found out a lot, firstly, the black death was caused by a bacteria which lived inside fleas. The fleas bit anything that moved (the bacteria inside their guts drove them nuts with hunger) and so the bacteria was spread this way.
It especially affected large well-populated towns. More isolated places like East Germany were not as badly affected. Experts reckon that the reason the plague killed so many was due to the fact that the population had already been weakened by a previous disaster. This "previous disaster" is a bit of a mystery. All that is known is that crops failed, famine was rife, and so the plague really had a grand time wiping out already-ill people.
Could it happen again ? Well, it's definitely less likely. We have all this great up to date medicine and blah blah. Plus we're all healthy. BUT if a plague like the black death swept through Sydney for instance, it would be in Tokyo by the end of the day, London the next, etc. It would occur on a WORLDWIDE scale. The Black death was isolated to Europe due to the times ...
So yeah. that was fun to type. Now I know I learnt something when I should have been working !
AIDS is a plague, I guess. That guy up there was right. The difference is it's spread by direct contact sexual or accidental blood to blood. AIDS is a virus.
Black death was spread by bacteria in fleas, and it was a re-occuring plague until the 1700s ... It was seasonal ... It's also easier to avoid sex than it is to avoid fleas ...
Hmm ... food for thought ...
2007-01-29 06:33:11 · answer #1 · answered by Jus P 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The black plague bacterium is still alive and well, there are cases reported to the CDC yearly in fact. In the US southwest the rodents are known to carry the disease still. Other country's rats are known carriers too. Google this subject and you will discover a ton of info!
The good news is we have meds that treat the disease now so unless a medicine resistant strain emerges we are safe from a epidemic or pandemic right now in America.
2007-01-29 06:56:40 · answer #2 · answered by bravokardia 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Black plague is here already..its called AIDS.
2007-01-29 06:18:29 · answer #3 · answered by Hi 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
What the previous answerer said, except 'terrorists'--they could infect us with a deadly illness to wipe us out faster than AIDS.
2007-01-29 06:22:26 · answer #4 · answered by Holiday Magic 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋