bubonic plague

created by tres equis

(thing) by Brain (1.1 y) (print) ? 1 C! I like it! Sun Apr 30 2000 at 22:26:22

Yersinia pestis bacteria. Bubonic Plague ravaged Europe in the 15th century, wiping out one third of the population. Symptoms include a large bluish-black cyst, and a blackening of the skin, which earned it the name the Black Death. Carried by fleas, it became prominent when fear of witches caused the large-scale elimination of cats, allowing rats to run rampant. Variations include an airborne variety that is carried by the mucus in a victim's cough. There are still cases today but modern anti-biotics can effectively treat the disease. Resistent strains of this bacteria are an extremely large threat. Scientists are investigating the possibility that decendents of plague survivors are resistent to AIDS because the Yersinia bacteria attacks the same macrophages that the HIV does.

(thing) by hesby (1.3 wk) (print) ? 1 C! I like it! Sun Apr 01 2001 at 18:47:46

Bubonic plague gets its name for the way it causes severe swelling in the lymph nodes, a condition called boubon in Greek. The swelling actually damages surrounding blood vessels, causing intense black bruises that made it known as the Black Death.

The plague was a central theme in The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, who wrote it after losing much of his family when the Black Death hit Florence, Italy in 1348. Two excellent contemporary books about the plague include The Black Death and the Transformation of the West (1997) by David Herlihy, and The Black Death (1979) by Philip Ziegler.

The severity of the disease and its relative ease of transmission (just find a few fleas) made the bubonic plague a natural choice for countries experimenting with biological warfare. After successfully exposing prisoners of war to the plague in WWII, Japan launched a series of biological attacks against China, including dropping plague-infested bombs on Manchuria.

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chaos

Was the Black Death really just Anthrax?	Black Death	cough up a lung	pneumonic plague
Yersinia pestis	AIDS and the Bubonic Plague	The importance of rat fleas to the history of the world	No matter how wise an old sheep, he can't teach a fish how to polevault
Unit 731: the cover-up	The Eugenics Problem	BowelsOfTheMemoryMgr	Pasteurella pestis
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention	Ring around the Rosie	Black Death Vodka	The Plague
Dark biology	Weapons of mass destruction	Decameron	macrophage
Fantasy Cynicism	I lived and I died, and the cats are still jumping through hoops	Southern Funerary Rites: Things to Do In Dixie When You're Dead	Yersinia pseudotuberculosis

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