Black Death - did rats get a bad rap?

[kallend 2,146]

/www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/29/black-death-not-spread-rat-fleas-london-plague

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[rifleman 70]

The theory makes sense and the guys and girls at Porton usually know their stuff.

Atheism is a Non-Prophet Organisation

[Arvoitus 1]

There is an annoying typo in the url that breaks the link.

Your rights end where my feelings begin.

[lawrocket 3]

I can see how there could be an airborne component. But does this falsify the flea hypothesis?

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[adamUK 3]

Did Rap get a bad rat?

BRBD - Black rat: Black Death.

[inline bewareoftherat.JPG]

[Amazon 7]

kallend

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/29/black-death-not-spread-rat-fleas-london-plague

So I wonder if some numbnutz will take the unadulterated 14th century DNA from Yursina pestus and make a cool weaponized version.

[kallend 2,146]

Amazon

***http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/29/black-death-not-spread-rat-fleas-london-plague

So I wonder if some numbnutz will take the unadulterated 14th century DNA from Yursina pestus and make a cool weaponized version.

Google "Porton Down" and draw your own conclusions

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[rifleman 70]

Officially Porton Down is now arranged something along the lines of the CDC but for many years it was a defence research establishment (read developing chemical/biological weapons and/or antidotes to same)

Atheism is a Non-Prophet Organisation

[Andy9o8 2]

On a bright note, "Blue Skies" is left unmolested.

[riddler 0]

Quote

So I wonder if some numbnutz will take the unadulterated 14th century DNA from Yursina pestus and make a cool weaponized version.

Efficacy in a third-world country would be likely be great, but in first-world countries, the prevalence of antibiotics might prevent a devastating outbreak. Once new spreads, people all over the US start popping Cipro, and staying in their houses, efficacy goes way down. Antibiotics are losing their overall potency, but are still very viable blocks for old-world diseases like this one.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[GeorgiaDon 379]

lawrocket

I can see how there could be an airborne component. But does this falsify the flea hypothesis?

No, it doesn't. This piece of "news" is another example of people inflating a long-known fact into a "paradigm-shifting revolution".

When people are infected by flea bite, a prominent symptom is the formation of "bubos", grossly swollen lymph nodes. This is bubonic plague. Eventually the infection will enter the bloodstream (scepticemic plague) and ultimately the lungs, at which point the lungs begin to fill with fluid (pneumonia/pneumonic plague) and patients will begin to generate highly infectious aerosols when they cough. So in any particular location the epidemic is initiated by flea-transmitted bubonic plague, and as it progresses it transitions to mostly pneumonic plague transmitted directly (by coughing/aerosolized Yersinia) from patient to caregivers/family members. Pneumonic plague is especially deadly, often overwhelming a previously healthy patient in 24-72 hrs.

Medical writings and etchings from the 1300s clearly show patients with bubonic plague, proving the role of fleas (and their rat hosts) in the Black Death.

Incidentally, plague is fairly common in prairie dogs and rock squirrels in northern New Mexico, northern Arizona, and in Colorado, and sporadically throughout drier areas in Utah and California. Several people get plague every year. Cats can be infected by hunting infected rodents, and infected cats tend to develop the pneumonic form of plague. Their salivary glands also get infected so their saliva is infectious. Cat owners have caught pneumonic plague and died from their cat coughing on them.

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[lawrocket 3]

Right. The cough transmission does not eliminate the flea vector.

So did rats get a bad rap? No. They did their part.

My wife is hotter than your wife.