The deadly kiss of the flea

Jan 4, 2008 15:26 GMT  ·  By

In a few years, it wiped out a quarter of Europe's population. It looked like the end of the world. The Black Death or Plague caused tremendous headaches, great fever, sweating and shivering. But unlike in other cases of fever, the victims had swellings filled with pus on the axillary areas, neck or even inguinal area, that's why the disease was also called Bubonic Plague. The bumps were first pink, then reddish and in the end turned black, being as big as an orange. The victims died in tremendous pain.

The first sign of plague emerged in 1347, when 12 Genoese ships coming from the Black Sea disembarked in the Sicilian harbor of Messina. The crew and the passengers were weakened, some being dead and some dying. The ships were full of rats and when they reached their destination, the rats "landed" spreading around, and with them the fleas infested with the deadly bacterium (Yersinia pestis) causing the disease. The bacterium breeds in the digestive tube of the flea. By those times, people did not understand what was happening.

Fleas feeding on rats transmitted them the plague bacterium. When rats were killed by the disease, the insects had to find another blood source: people.

The dirty and agglomerated cities of the medieval Europe were ideal for the rats and fleas. The infested rat fleas caused millions of deaths. In a few weeks and months so many people died, that the survivors had to dig huge common tombs but these got soon filled too.

The plague seems to have emerged for the first time in 1330 in Central Asia. It ravaged through Eastern China and India, then extended to the Near East and North Africa, reaching Europe. Some areas got deserted. Rich and poor, young and elder, all died. The most exposed were the priests, because they attended the diseased people. Some regions, like mountains or Milan, were less affected.

As the real cause of the disease was not known, it could not be treated. All kind of odd treatments were made, like one made of molasses, snake, wine and 60 ingredients. Another one said the patient had to sleep on the right side, then on the left side. Medics wore odd costumes, with long mantles, hats, peaked masks and protection glasses. But nothing worked.

Many saw in this a divine punishment. It was also more curious that in some cities, the plague killed 10 % of the people, while in another 50 %. Now it is known there were 3 strains of plague, and the most common was also the least virulent. One virulent strain could infect without the fleas, by inhaling bacteria eliminated through coughing or sneezing. This was the pulmonary plague.

The other virulent strain was transmitted through flea bite, and the bacteria entered immediately in the bloodstream, killing the persons in just a few hours: one could fall asleep and not wake up. This was the septicemic plague.

By 1348, the plague reached Spain, France and southern England, and by 1351 Russia and Sweden. The first plague assault finished in 1351, killing one third of the Europe's population. It reappeared in 1361, 1369 and regularly till the end of the 15th century. Later, it turned rarer. In England, the last outburst occurred in 1665, killing 100,000 people.

Plague still exists. To the end of the 19th century, it reappeared in Asia, killing just in India 6 million people. In 1995, an outburst in India killed thousands of people.