Yersinia Pestis Research Paper

End of a Paradigm, Samuel K. Cohn Jr. argues that the Black Death of 14th century Europe was not the same illness as the bubonic plague. To help illustrate his argument, Cohn compared the Black Death of 14th century Europe to the agent of the bubonic plague, Yersinia pestis, which was discovered in Hong Kong

What is the plague? The plague or referred to as the Black Death, according to the CDC (2015), “is a disease that affects humans and other mammals and caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria. Humans usually get plague after being bitten by a rodent flea that is carrying the plague bacterium or by handling an animal infected with plague”. There are three categories of a plague. There is the bubonic plague, which is the most common form. With this form bacteria infects the lymph system and causes it to become inflamed. Symptoms of this type of plague are fever, headache, chills, and swollen and tender lymph nodes, which are called buboes. Then there is the Septicemic, which occurs when the bacteria multiply in the blood. Symptoms of this type of plague are fever, chills, extreme weakness, abdominal pain, shock, and possibly bleeding into the skin and other organs. Also, skin and other tissues may turn black and die, especially fingers, toes and the nose (CDC, 2015). Then there is the Pneumonic Plague, which is the most serious form of plague and occurs when Y. pestis bacteria infect the lungs and cause pneumonia (NIH, 2015). This is the only form of the plague that can be transmitted human to human. Symptoms of this form of the plague are ever, headache, weakness, and a rapidly

The roots of this fearsome plague are very chilling to think about knowing that a mere flea can be the cause of the bubonic plagues epidemic. The more specific medical or scientific term for this disease is Yersinia Pestis. This was named after the doctor, Alexandre Yersin, who isolated the bacteria in 1894 during the pandemic that began in China in the 1860’s. The earliest traces of Y Pestis can be found all the way back to the Gobi Desert of Mongolia in the 1320’s. The cause of the sudden eruption is yet to be solved but the earliest major toll it has taken in our history books is in China in the 1330’s during the expansion of trade in the middle and high

Hundreds of years ago, a plague swept over the known world. The Great Plague, Great Pestilence, and Black Death were a few of the names that it was given. In the Background Essay, it states that, "the plague killed between 25 and 45% of the populations it encountered." It was played a huge role in the history of the 14th century. There were three bacterial strains of the plague; all of them were deadly. According

It is impossible to discuss Europe’s history without mentioning the Plague of 1348, also known as the Black Death. The Black Death reached Italian shores in the spring of 1348. The presence of such a plague was enormously devastating making its mark in unprecedented numbers in recorded history. According to records, it is estimated to have killed a third of Europe’s population. The Black Death was caused by bacteria named Yersinia Pestis. This germ was transferred from rats to fleas and then to humans. This disease spread quickly due to the infestation of rats. Also, sanitary conditions were very poor which did not help the problem at all. When a human was infected, the bacteria moved from the bloodstream

Plague is a very deadly bacterial disease. It has been a recurring force that has wiped out much of the world’s population during it’s outbreaks. The bacteria that is responsible for one of history’s most deadly diseases is Yersinia pestis. Yersinia pestis first infectes a rat. The rat is then the host for a flea. The flea feeds on the blood of the rat which is infected by the bacteria. For a reason still unknown today the bacteria started multiplying in the flea blocking it 's stomach. This caused the flea to throw up the infected rats blood into the human when it feeds on it.

The pandemic known to history as the Black Death was one of the world’s worst natural disasters in history. It was a critical time for many as the plague hit Europe and “devastated the Western world from 1347 to 1351, killing 25%-50% of Europe’s population and causing or accelerating marked political, economic, social, and cultural changes.” The plague made an unforgettable impact on the history of the West. It is believed to have originated somewhere in the steppes of central Asia in the 1330s and then spread westwards along the caravan routes. It spread over Europe like a wildfire and left a devastating mark wherever it passed. In its first few weeks in Europe, it killed between 100 and 200 people per day. Furthermore, as the weather became colder, the plague worsened, escalating the mortality rate to as high as 750 deaths per day. By the spring of 1348, the death toll may have reached 1000 a day. One of the main reasons the plague spread so quickly and had such a devastating effect on Europe was ultimately due to the lack of medical knowledge during the medieval time period.

The black plague, the foremost severe epidemic in human history, ravaged Europe from 1347-1351. This plague killed entire families at a time and destroyed a minimum of 1 village. Greatly causal to the Crisis of the Fourteenth Century, Not only did the black plague take a devastating toll on human life, but it to boot contend a major role in shaping European life among the years following. The black plague consisted primarily of plague; but plague was to boot gift among the epidemic. Symptoms of the plague capsulate high fever, aching limbs, and blood unconditioned reflex.

The Bubonic Plagues a highly lethal infection caused by the microbe Yersinia pestis. This plague is most commonly associated with the plague of the 14th century, when it wiped out nearly half of the entire European population. The Bubonic Plague spread rapidly throughout Europe and was an often fatal illness, characterized by enlarged lymph nodes with pus filled buboes, gangrene, septicemia, and severe lung infections, followed by the quick onslaught of death. The Black Plague is the worst natural disaster in European History. The plagues devastation impacted all aspects of European life and was the turning point from medieval to modern Europe. The incidence and virulence of the plague decreased over the years and became limited to certain areas by the end of the 20th century. However, the black plague has recently re-emerged around the world. The expanded knowledge from genetic research has introduced the threat of multidrug resistance and a modern day pandemic of the “Black Death.”

Throughout history, diseases and illnesses have had profound effects on society as they cause death on a massive scale, but none have been more impactful or infamous than the Bubonic Plague. The Bubonic Plague, more commonly known as the Black Death, was a highly contagious disease caused by the overgrowth of Yersin Bacillus, a bacteria found in the stomachs of fleas. Certain environmental conditions caused the fleas to regurgitate the bacteria into the bloodstream of rats, who then transferred the disease to humans. From 1340 to approximately 1350 AD, the Black Death traveled from Central Asia to Europe, where it killed over twenty-three million people, about one third of Europe’s population. The Black Death hit Europe during a period of great

Plague is an infectious disease that affects rodents, other animals and humans caused by Yersinia pestis bacteria. Yersinia pestis is the causative agent of the Plague. It is a virulent pathogen causes painful, severe illness as well as death. “Yersinia pestis is a Gram-negative, bipolar-staining coccobacillus member of the Enterobacteriaceae family, and is an obligate intracellular pathogen that must be contained

The black plague took thirty to fifty percent of Europe’s population from the years 1347 to 1351. For many people, it was a devastating loss for Europe’s population and Europe would never be the same after this tragic disaster. Many people roamed the streets of Europe delirious from unbearable pain, unable to keep food down, and overcome with fever. Citizens of Europe were covered in black, oozing boils that were unbelievably painful. These black, painful boils are where the plague got its name, “The Black Plague”. The Black Plague spread through Europe, killed half of the population, and had terrifying symptoms.

In the 14th century, a devastating plague known as the Black Death was responsible for the death of more than one-third of Europe’s population. The first recorded epidemic of the Black Death or the Bubonic Plague was in Europe during the 6th Century. The disease truly became pandemic in 1328, the medieval period of the history of the world. Bubonic plague is one of three types of bacterial infection caused by Yersinia pestis which can be transmitted by rodents or from the bite of a flea. Most interesting about the bubonic plague is that there have been several epidemics, although the one that killed one-third of Europe’s population is the most relevant and memorable. Because of the impact the bubonic plague had on the English society, they

Scientifically confirmed in the late 19th century, Yersinina pestis, a bacterium found in rats and their parasitic fleas, traveled from Asian ships along trade routes to Europe. Westward, an outbreak first appeared in Constantinople in 1346, reached Sicily by 1347, then the Italian ports of Venice Genoa, and Pisa a year later in 1348; it thereafter swept through Spain, southern France, and northern Europe rapidly with death at the doorstep, and sporadically reappeared in the following decades. Originally theorized to only spread as an infected flea bit its victim, such an inefficient technique of transmission contradicted the disease’s sudden spread, eventually propelling an additional, airborne culprit. As the bubonic plague infiltrated a host’s lungs, it induced sneezing and coughing that extensively circulated through an area and increased disease exposure. Infected, yet seemingly healthy citizens also moved to clean towns, the vast majority of the living existed under unsanitary conditions, and misinformed physicians practiced either adiaphorous or detrimental treatments, heightening the magnitude of fatalities. In short, although the bubonic plague historically entered through flea-bearing rats that inhabited Asian trading ships on their way to Europe, and aggressively viraled through the air once docked, the naive fourteenth century society reveled in uncovering alternative “causes” for the plague, and distinctly responded to

Bubonic plague is an infectious disease that is spread by the bacteria Yersinia pestis. These bacteria remain in a dormant state primarily in a rat flea’s foregut. Once the flea has bitten a victim it regurgitates the contents in its foregut into the bite location. Once the bacterium has entered into a mammal’s warm body it begins to reproduce and spread throughout the mammal’s body. The reproduction of this bacterium creates large painful swollen lymph nodes which are called buboes. Once these buboes get large enough they begin to ooze infected body fluid so that any contact between an infected person and a healthy person will facilitate the spread of this disease. (The Mayo Clinic Staff, 2012)