Click here to go BACK to the main page

PLAGUE - desease transmitted by fleas (carried by the black rat) which infect the sufferer with Pasteurella Pestis. An early symptom is swelling of the lymph nodes, usually in the armpit and groin. Such swellings are called Buboes, hence Bubonic plague. It causes blood poisoning and the death rate is high.
Other and more virulent forms of plague are septicaemic and pneumonic, the latter was fatal before the introduction of sulpha drugs and antibiotics.
Outbreaks of plague still occur, mostly in poor countries, but never to the extent seen in the late middle ages, the most notorios outbreak being the Great Plague of London in 1665 when about 100,000 of the 400,000 inhabitants died.