The Bubonic Plague
Early History of Bubonic Plague.
P.K.GhataK, MD
No. 37
Ancient civilizations, such as Mesopotamia, China, Egypt, and India, have recorded accounts of outbreaks of rapidly spreading infectious diseases in their historical records. The epidemics often followed invasions and wars. Some of these stories go back to 1800 BCE. The descriptions are detailed enough that some of them are undoubtedly about the bubonic plague.
Bubo is a Greek word meaning groin. Swelling in the groin is also called bubo. Today, bubo means painful enlargement of the lymph nodes in the groin.
Scientists are handicapped in not being able to read these ancient manuscripts. They rely on the accounts of priests, ethologists, and scholars. Their expertise is not in medicine or epidemiology, and real substances are lost in translation. In addition, think of how much accumulated knowledge was lost in the burning of the Library of Alexandria and the Library of Nalanda University in India. It is known that the fire in Nalanda continued to burn for 6 months, till the whole structure collapsed on the ground.
Origin of Plague.
The current evidence indicates that plaque was an animal disease that originated in small rodents in the grassland of Central Asia, perhaps predating human civilization.
Black Death:
Black death and Bubonic death are the same illness; the name is so derived because the victims developed subcutaneous bleeding in various sites and gangrene of the extremities in a day or two following the onset of illness. And deaths came quickly.
The recorded history of Plague in the West:
The Justinian Plague of the 6th Century originated in Ethiopia and spread to the capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople. The death rate was nearly 100 %. 10,000 people died every day in Constantinople and it wiped out a third of the population of the empire. The plaque did not die down completely; instead, it smoldered for 200 years.
The second pandemic of 1342 to 1352 is known as The Black Death.
The plaque originated in Asia Minor. For 4 years, the plague accompanied Khan Janibeg of the Tatar army and reached Kaffa; from there, it reached Crimea, the port city. Ships carrying infected sailors and rats spread plague to Genoa and then to all cities and ports of the Mediterranean, then to England and Norway. Ultimately, it entered Russia and India. A quarter of the population of India perished from the bubonic plague.
A second wave of the bubonic plague occurred in England in 1361 and killed 10% of the population.
The third pandemic began in South China and spread in all directions. In Hong Kong, 12 million people perished from it in 20 years; the plague continued to reappear yearly.
Alexander Yersin isolated the bacterium causing plaque in Hong Kong in 1897. One year later, Paul-Louis Somond in India established the way humans were infected by the bite of fleas.
######################################################
Comments