Rats: The Black Death

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The Black Death silently swept across Europe, killing anyone in its path. It made victims suffer by mutating their body into a bumpy, vomiting mess. This all started because of rats. The Black Death lasted a long time, because the people didn’t know that rats spreading the disease. To begin, exhibit C titled "Plagues” explains that San Francisco had a massive earthquake that drove rats “...out of the sewers and into the streets of...” the big city. They had to make “a massive extinction effort…” to save the humans. Equally important, the text explains that there was an outbreak of rats in India. More extermination like efforts “...helped stop the spread and prove once and for all that the fleas on rats were both the carrier, and transmitter, of the …show more content…

The doctor’s wore masks with flowers in them and suits to keep the smells out, but it also kept the rats diseases out. Few doctors got sick so the people thought smell was the cause, but it was in fact the rats. They thought that the stench spread the disease, so they never killed any rats, and so there was never a recording of a massive die off of rats. Additionally, exhibit G shows that they exterminated “...all house pets...” They think that the problem was getting worse, because those “...animals live in [their] homes…” This explains without a doubt that rats were the cause of the Black Plague, because if all of the house pets were exterminated, the cats would be too. There would be no felines to eat the rats , and so the population of rats would stop increase drastically. This means that there were more rats to spread the disease faster. Also, it shows that the people didn’t know that rats spread the disease, because they wouldn’t kill all of their cats. In conclusion, rats are the cause of the Black Plague, because the people killed their house pets, and the disease is similar to others that have been spread by