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Why Did Gerbils Spread The Bubonic Plague

1292 Words6 Pages

Europe was in peril in the 1300s when the Bubonic Plague took the lives of upwards 50 percent of the European population. The plague was spread by a bacteria called Yersinia Pestis, which was carried in fleas that are mostly thought to have stayed on the backs of black rats, but many argue that the fleas spread on gerbils. Although many believe that gerbils spread the bubonic plague in 1300s Europe, it was in fact spread predominantly by rats that hosted the fleas that carried the disease, a poor understanding of health, and a pneumonic form of The Plague. Some people argue over what different hosts of the fleas spread the disease, but what is undisputed, is the fact that fleas carrying the bacteria bite the victim, giving them The Plague. …show more content…

According to a recent study done by Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, the weather was more apt for gerbils rather than black rats. The study looks at tree rings in Eurasia to observe what the weather was like during the Black Plague in that area during the 1300s. This study fails to address the fact that rats were proven to be common in harbours and did in fact spread The Plague through that. Also, the weather in many areas in Europe were warm and apt for Black rats, unlike the cold, wet weather the study described. For example, in the year 1348, Florence Italy began to warm up, in turn, this increased activity in rats, spreading The …show more content…

Some argue that it would not be very effective because it was hard to transmit the way it did (coughing in someone’s face), but because its incubation period, the time it takes for the disease to start showing symptoms, is only 24 hours, it spread and killed very fast. The pneumonic form of The Plague is normally an advanced version of the Bubonic Plague that went into the lungs, which makes it very fatal. Symptoms include fever, weakness, chills, internal bleeding, shock, and abdominal pain.When someone with the Pneumonic plague coughs, air droplets with the bacteria in it are released into the air and can get into others’ systems. Although it was difficult to spread, it killed quickly and took many, many lives during the 1300s. If not treated, with proper care, the disease had a 100 percent mortality rate. This means that in the time period in which it spread, a vast majority of people who got the Pneumatic Plague

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