Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
19 November 2010
The Bubonic Plague
A terrifyingly deadly disease spread around
the world in the middle of the 14th century
From 1347 to 1351, bubonic plague killed about 25 million people in Europe, a third of the population. It became know as the Black Death because victims suffered internal bleeding that darkened their skin.
Plague Spreads from Asia
The disease arrived from Asia where there were similar outbreaks at the same time, as well as in the Middle East.
According to the National Academy of Sciences, outbreaks occurred repeatedly in Europe, reportedly gathering strength with each generation, until the 1700s. And, by then, the estimated worldwide death toll from the plague had reached 137 million.
But, the first wave of the deadly pandemic started 800 years earlier, in the 6th
century CE. That’s when the Plague of Justinian (named after the Byzantine Emperor
Justinian I) hit the city of Constantinople. It is thought to have started in East
or Central Africa and spread from Egypt via ship-
In a single year, from 541 to 542, it killed 40 percent of Constantinople’s population alone, and eventually about a quarter of the people in the Mediterranean region. According to one estimate, the Justinian Plague claimed as many as a hundred million lives in the Byzantine Empire during the sixth century.
It would be another eight centuries before the Black Death devastated Europe again
in the mid-
The third pandemic began in the mid-
Bubonic Plague still Around
Worldwide, the World Health Organization reports 1,000 to 3,000 cases of plague every year. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, in North America, plague is found in certain animals and their fleas from the Pacific Coast to the Great Plains, and from southwestern Canada to Mexico.
Most human cases in the United States occur in two regions: 1) northern New Mexico, northern Arizona, and southern Colorado; and 2) California, southern Oregon, and far western Nevada.
Bubonic plague also exists in Africa, Asia, and South America. In the United States,
the last urban plague epidemic occurred in Los Angeles in 1924-
National Geographic reports that “In 2003, more than 2,100 human cases and 180 deaths were recorded, nearly all of them in Africa. The last reported serious outbreak was in 2006 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Central Africa, when at least 50 people died.”
Researchers also warn that climate changes could increase the incidence of plague among humans. According to a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2006, the bacterium that caused the deadly disease (Yersinia pestis) became more widespread following warmer springs and wetter summers.
The international team of scientists said the rodent fleas that spread the plague flourish in such weather conditions.
Their research showed a mere 10 degrees Celsius rise in the springtime temperature led to a 59 percent increase in the frequency of the disease. They also found that the weather was warmer and wetter when the three previous waves of the plague hit.
“Plague: The Black Death.” National Geographic.
“Role of the Yersinia Pestis Plasminogen Activator in the Incidence of Distinct Septicemic
and Bubonic Forms of Flea-
© Canada and the World, October 2007
Updated July 2010
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Almost 80 percent of all new or re-
U.S. National Park Service
And so it was with the Black Death, which was spread by fleas from rats to humans.