The Black Death was airborne not fleas.. researchers say

[Ichingcarpenter]

Yikes.


Archaeologists and forensic scientists who have examined 25 skeletons unearthed in the Clerkenwell area of London a year ago believe they have uncovered the truth about the nature of the Black Death that ravaged Britain and Europe in the mid-14th century.

Analysis of the bodies and of wills registered in London at the time has cast doubt on "facts" that every schoolchild has learned for decades: that the epidemic was caused by a highly contagious strain spread by the fleas on rats.

Now evidence taken from the human remains found in Charterhouse Square, to the north of the City of London, during excavations carried out as part of the construction of the Crossrail train line, have suggested a different cause: only an airborne infection could have spread so fast and killed so quickly.

The Black Death arrived in Britain from central Asia in the autumn of 1348 and by late spring the following year it had killed six out of every 10 people in London. Such a rate of destruction would kill five million now. By extracting the DNA of the disease bacterium, Yersinia pestis, from the largest teeth in some of the skulls retrieved from the square, the scientists were able to compare the strain of bubonic plague preserved there with that which was recently responsible for killing 60 people in Madagascar. To their surprise, the 14th-century strain, the cause of the most lethal catastrophe in recorded history, was no more virulent than today's disease. The DNA codes were an almost perfect match.

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

Miasma theory
The miasma theory (also called the miasmatic theory) held that diseases such as cholera, chlamydia or the Black Death were caused by a miasma (?ί????, ancient Greek: "pollution&quot , a noxious form of "bad air", also known as "night air". The theory held that the origin of epidemics was due to a miasma, emanating from rotting organic matter.[1]

The miasma theory was accepted from ancient times in Europe, India, and China. The theory was eventually displaced in the 19th century by the discovery of germs and the germ theory of disease

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasma_theory

[In_The_Wind]

1. I don't care what they say, I still don't want any pet fleas in my house.

[flying rabbit]

2. I know

I keep my pet fleas chained up in the backyard.

[meow2u3]

11. I don't have any pet fleas

I get rid of them with diatamaceous earth. It works, believe me!

[hobbit709]

3. The pneumonic form is spread that way but it usually starts with a flea bite

and that infected person coughs it up in droplets that others inhale.

[Javaman]

7. +1 nt

[JHB]

4. I don't see anything new here. Yersinia pestis infection takes several forms...

...one of which is pneumonic plague. The pneumonic form is the deadliest, and can be an outgrowth of a flea-transmitted outbreak of bubonic plague. They're not mutually exclusive, it's a matter of the bacterium infecting the lungs where it can be aeresolized and spread in an airborne fashion.

[JHB]

6. It's the headline from the source article, which is where the inaccuracy lies...

...although the reference to miasmas is on the OP.

There's a big difference between an identifiable airborne vector of a known pathogen and miasmic "bad airs".

[yardwork]

12. Yes. This has been know for a long time.

Miasma had nothing to do with the plague. I think that the OP is conflating two different things.

[cthulu2016]

8. ??? It has long been known that it was both

[MineralMan]

9. I believe that it has been shown to spread in both ways.

This doesn't seem quite conclusive, really. The Guardian is not a sweet-smelling well of accurate science reporting, sadly.

Pneumonic Plague and Bubonic Plague are caused by the same bacterium, but are spread differently. However the flea-borne variety can infect the lungs and create an airborne spread.

[Humanist_Activist]

10. Well I was going to mention that the plague has multiple forms of transmission...

but see that DUers are already on top of that, so allow me to just join the chorus in saying "duh!".

[LuvNewcastle]

13. When they say "airborne" what does that mean, exactly?

I've heard of cases where certain hemorrhagic fevers like Ebola became airborne in some places, but that doesn't mean quite the same thing as when people say that the Plague was airborne. Plague was spread by droplets coughed up by victims that were inhaled by other people. However, it seems like when Ebola becomes airborne, that means that the disease is just in the air around a certain place, and the only way you can save yourself is to leave that place. Still, maybe it can be on your clothes or in your hair; there's much that scientists still don't know about these cases. You could avoid the airborne plague, it seems, just by staying away from victims and keeping yourself free of fleas. So airborne Plague doesn't seem quite as lethal as airborne Ebola.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

14. Well, good.

Because I just found fleas on my dog this morning and had to have him dipped.

Otherwise, I might be worried that Black Death could very well follow.

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. Fascinating....

Thanks for finding this...