The Bubonic plague was a fatal illness that swept through medieval Europe and killed millions of people. Now, researchers have learned more about its origins. Archaeological and genetic data pin the origins of Europe's 1346–1353 bubonic plague to a bacterial strain found in graves in Asia from the 1330s.
The Bubonic Plague or Black Death is an infection spread mostly to humans by infected fleas that travel on rodents. Prevention doesn't include a vaccine, but does involve reducing your exposure to mice, rats, squirrels and other animals that may be infected. Here's the new discovery:
Black Death Origins
Genomic analysis of 14th century remains originally buried in modern-day Kyrgyzstan suggests an outbreak in the region likely served as the precursor to the Black Death, researchers revealed on June 15, 2022. The discovery sheds light on the longstanding mystery surrounding the potential origin of the medieval plague, which killed tens of millions of people across Eurasia and North Africa roughly 700 years ago.
In the study, DNA from a strain of the plague-causing bacteria Yersinia pestis was found in gravesites where the tombstones indicated the occupant had died from pestilence. Analysis revealed the strain to be a direct ancestor of a number of major lineages that later propagated across multiple continents, including a variant recovered from graves dug in London at the height of the outbreak in 1348.
For centuries, the region occupied a central position along the ancient Silk Road trading routes, which researchers say would have facilitated the widespread transmission of the disease.
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MORE: The incidence of plague in England from 1348 to 1679.
ABOUT THE PLAGUE: Plague results from infection with the bacterium, Pasteurella pestis, sometimes called Yersinia pestis, and the incubation period is from two to four days. The illness may take a bubonic, septicaemic of pneumonic form.
GROSS, PAINFUL SYMPTOMS: The bubonic form is characterised by buboes, which are masses of tender, enlarge lymph nodes, usually in the groin or axilla. They are painful until they suppurate and drain, usually one to two weeks after the onset of the illness. The patient has a high fever (102-5 F, 38.89-40.56 C) over this period, with toxic symptoms of headache, vomiting and ataxia. He may also show a bleeding tendency, with petechiae and bruising of the skin and internal, visceral bleeding which may prove fatal. The septicaemic form of the disease is simply an overwhelming infection where the patient dies before the buboes have a chance to develop. The pneumonic form probably occurs in about 5 per cent of patients. Lung lesions develop and break down, so that the patient produces blood-stained sputum teeming with the organism. He is then a dangerous source of airborne droplet infection.
The proportion of deadly pneumonic cases seems to have varied in different plague epidemics, and its relation to the commoner bubonic type is not clear.
Some authorities believe plague was more likely to take the pneumonic form during the winter; others, however, think winter plague unlikely, and attribute the reported winter deaths to some other overwhelming lung infection, Before antibiotics, pneumonic and septicaemic plague were almost always fatal. Modern antibiotic therapy is usually effective, and deaths now only occur when diagnosis, and hence treatment, are delayed.
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SIDE ARTICLE: How did the ancient bubonic plague shape our immune systems today?
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