Rats didn\'t spread Black Death?

[Alanus]

Ah! I get it.
I'm fairly ignorant of flea species. I saw a talented flea in Tivoli, Copenhagen, years ago. "He" was a tight-rope walker. Other fleas danced, rode bicycles, and other generally amazing stuff. None of them gave me the black death... so I finally made it to RAT. :wink:

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Did you get autographed photos with them?

[M. Caecilius]

There are also some other pointers to another source of infection, such as the speed the Great Plague progressed - within 2 years it had spread from Constantinople to Italy, Spain and France. From there north to North Africa, England, Germany, Skandinavia, Russia and Iceland. The Bubonic Plague however travels at a few miles per year!

I wished I could remember where I read this, but I have come across the idea that the plague was carried with merchant shipping (through the rats that were on board). Constantinople, according to the same source, received it from the East - India, if I recall correctly. That point has always worried me a bit: I get rats on ships, but on caravan roads? At any rate, it's difficult to argue about this as I can't quote a specific reference, but I thought I'd share and ask for opinions.

Good point Alanus.During the 1665 outbreak in Britain, they actually made things worse by destroying cats and dogs, mistakenly thinking they may be to blame, when the reallity was that these animals were helping to keep down the rat population.....

Another reference I can't remember is that the Great Fire of 1666 remedied this by killing the rat population.

I've also read somewhere that one of the Avignon Popes spent much of the year during one of the outbreaks between two lit braziers where incense was burnt, believing that the illness was spread through bad air (in a similar way to what they believed to be the origin of Malaria - Mala Aere, Bad Air). I've read another comment I can't trace any longer that it would have worked because flies (or other carriers?) don't like flying through smoke. Although most people don't have the luxury to spent their time in a cloud of incense.

[john roberts]

Yet another theory I've read is that the native European black rat was driven out by larger, more aggressive Asian gray rat. The black rat was sociable and liked to live in the walls and roofs of houses and was more likely to transmit fleas to people, whereas the gray rat likes to keep its distance and dwells in sewers and cellars.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

There may have been may form of carrier, from human to animal pests and on.
Where there is a will, there is a way...applies to disease's too...