60 Fun Facts About Bubonic Plague

Which bacterium causes bubonic plague?

It was originally named Pasteurella pestis and was renamed in 1944 after its discoverer.

How many types of plague does the bacterium cause, depending on the route of infection?

Bubonic, septicemic and pneumonic, depending on whether the bacteria settle in the lymph nodes, blood or lungs.

What is the swollen, painful lymph node that gives bubonic plague its name called?

They usually appear in the groin, armpit or neck nearest the flea bite and can grow until they burst.

The word "bubonic" comes from a Greek word meaning what?

The buboes most commonly appear in that area because flea bites are usually on the legs.

Which insect species is the most effective transmitter of bubonic plague?

Xenopsylla cheopis regurgitates infected blood into its bite because the bacteria clog its gut.

How long after exposure do flu-like symptoms of bubonic plague typically develop?

Fever, headache and vomiting come first, followed by the swollen nodes near the entry point.

Without treatment, roughly what share of people infected with plague die?

With modern antibiotics the risk falls to around 10%, and death, when it comes, is usually within ten days.

Which of these antibiotics is used to treat bubonic plague?

Gentamicin, doxycycline and ciprofloxacin also work; treatment should start within 24 hours of symptoms.

Which three countries recorded the most plague cases between 2010 and 2015?

Globally there were 3,248 documented cases and 584 deaths in that period.

On average, how many human plague cases did the United States record per year between 1900 and 2015?

They cluster in rural New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and California; two 2015 cases were caught in Yosemite.

A Mongolian couple died of plague in 2019 after hunting and eating which animal?

A teenager died the same way in 2020 after eating infected meat from the same rodent.

The first recorded plague pandemic is named after which Byzantine emperor, who caught it and survived?

The historian Procopius later suggested in his Secret History that the emperor was a demon who had created the plague himself.

In which year did the first pandemic's plague reach Constantinople?

It moved from port to port around the Mediterranean before pushing inland into Asia Minor, Greece and Italy.

Which historian described his personal encounter with the Justinianic plague in his History of the Wars?

He also wrote the scandalous Secret History about the imperial court.

Roughly how many people is the Black Death estimated to have killed?

That was around half of Europe's 14th-century population, and the continent did not recover its numbers until the 16th century.

During which years did the Black Death sweep Europe?

It was the second great natural disaster of the Late Middle Ages after the Great Famine of 1315–1317.

When is the term "Black Death" first attested in English?

It translated the Danish den sorte død; contemporaries called it the pestilence or the Great Death.

A 2022 study traced the Black Death's earliest victims to cemeteries in the Chüy Valley of which country?

Syriac tombstones there record a spike in deaths from pestilence in 1338–1339.

The Black Death reportedly entered Europe during the 1347 siege of which Genoese trading port in Crimea?

The besieging Golden Horde army of Jani Beg is said to have catapulted infected corpses over the walls.

How many Genoese galleys carried the plague into Sicily in October 1347?

One of the galleys expelled from Italy reached Marseilles by the end of January.

The Medical Faculty of Paris blamed the pestilence on what?

This miasma theory held that the alignment had corrupted the air.

About how many Jews were murdered in the Strasbourg massacre of February 1349?

Many Jews fled to Poland, where King Casimir the Great welcomed them.

Which city-state, now Dubrovnik, imposed a thirty-day isolation on arrivals from plague areas in 1377?

The period was later stretched to forty days, giving us the word quarantine.

The word "quarantine" derives from the Italian word for which number?

Ragusa's original isolation period was thirty days before it was extended.

Which Boccaccio work uses a frame story of people fleeing Florence to escape the Black Death?

Chaucer and Petrarch also wrote about the pandemic, and all three are considered part of the Western canon.

Which diarist stayed in London and recorded the Great Plague of 1665 first-hand?

He noted the first cases in the parish of St Michael, Crooked Lane, on 30 April 1665.

Roughly how many people did the Great Plague of London kill in 18 months?

That was almost a quarter of the city's population.

How was a plague house marked in London in 1665?

The words "Lord have mercy upon us" were painted alongside it and a watchman stood guard outside.

To which city did Charles II and his court finally move in September 1665 to escape the plague?

They had gone first to Salisbury but left when plague cases appeared there too.

Who wrote A Journal of the Plague Year, published in 1722?

He was only about five during the actual epidemic, so the vivid book is a reconstruction.

Which Derbyshire village quarantined itself in 1665 after plague arrived in a parcel of cloth from London?

The villagers' sacrifice stopped the disease spreading further across the county.

Who were the "searchers of the dead" appointed by each London parish?

Their unreliable reports fed the weekly Bills of Mortality, which many families bribed them to falsify.

Which September 1666 event destroyed many records of the 1665 epidemic and was thought to end it?

Because only deaths were recorded, nobody knows how many Londoners caught the disease and recovered.

In which Chinese province did the third plague pandemic most likely originate?

The disease stayed localised in the south-west for years before reaching Canton and Hong Kong in 1894.

During which 1894 outbreak did Alexandre Yersin isolate the plague bacterium?

Kitasato Shibasaburō isolated it a few days earlier, but his imprecise description meant only Yersin's name stuck.

Which Japanese bacteriologist isolated the plague bacillus days before Yersin but isn't in its name?

He practised Koch's methodology, while Yersin belonged to the rival Pasteur school.

Which French researcher demonstrated in 1898 that fleas were the vector of plague?

Until then many still blamed miasmas or direct contact with the sick.

Which researcher tested his own plague vaccine on himself in Bombay in January 1897?

He went on to direct the Plague Laboratory that now bears his name.

Roughly how many deaths did the third pandemic cause in British India?

Worldwide the toll was at least 15 million, and the WHO considered the pandemic active until 1959.

Which US law was made permanent in 1902 during the San Francisco plague outbreak?

City authorities had already quarantined all of Chinatown after finding a single case.

Where was the last major plague outbreak in the United States, in 1924?

The bacterium still lives in wild rodents in the western states.

Which Chinese city did the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service bomb with plague-carrying fleas in 1940?

Unit 731 repeated the tactic over Changde in 1941, as its officers later testified at the Khabarovsk trials.

Which country's 1994 plague outbreak caused about 700 infections and a mass internal migration?

Fifty-two people died across five states.

The first mention of the beaked plague doctor is tied to which royal physician in 1619?

The curved leather beak was stuffed with herbs, dried flowers or a vinegar sponge against bad air.

Which Ingmar Bergman film uses the plague as the backdrop for a knight's chess game with Death?

Albert Camus's novel The Plague uses a quarantined modern city in the same allegorical way.

When did the claim that "Ring a Ring o' Roses" is about the plague first emerge?

The symptoms in the rhyme do not match the disease, and older European versions do not fit the story either.

The Black Death reportedly entered Europe after which Mongol khan's army besieged Kaffa in 1345–46?

His Tatar troops are said to have catapulted plague corpses over the walls, though infected rats crossing the siege lines is just as likely.

Which Polish king welcomed the many Jews who fled persecution during the Black Death?

By 1351 some 60 major and 150 smaller Jewish communities in Europe had been destroyed.

In the 17th century, roughly how many people did plague kill in Italy?

France lost at least two million between 1600 and 1670, and Spain more than 1.25 million.

According to Jean-Noël Biraben, plague was present somewhere in Europe every year between 1346 and which year?

The last great western European outbreaks came in the 18th century, and in North Africa in the 19th.

How many separate plague outbreaks did Australia record between 1900 and 1925?

They killed over 1,000 people, chiefly in Sydney, and led to pioneering research on flea transmission.

Where was the deadliest modern plague outbreak, which killed about 170 people in October 2017?

A drug-resistant strain had already been found on the island in 1995.

Roughly what was plague's estimated case fatality rate in the 2010s, with antibiotics?

It may be higher in underdeveloped regions, and drug resistance remains a fear.

Which Mamluk capital lost more than a third of its 600,000 residents when plague arrived in 1348?

The Nile was choked with corpses, and plague returned to the city more than fifty times over the next 150 years.

How did plague reach Mecca in 1348?

In 1351 or 1352 the Rasulid sultan of Yemen carried the disease home after release from Mamluk captivity.

Which historian, writing as 'Mrs Markham', used the term 'black death' for the 14th-century outbreak in 1823?

Swedish and Danish chroniclers had popularised the name; it entered English via a Danish phrase in 1755.

Which ancient poet used the phrase 'black death' to describe the monster Scylla?

In the Odyssey her mouths are 'full of black Death'; Seneca may have been the first to apply the phrase to an epidemic.

A Utrecht University study suggests Black Death depopulation cooled the climate by triggering what?

Thomas Van Hoof's work links the freed-up land to the onset of the Little Ice Age.

In April 1348 plague reached Tunis by ship from which island?

A besieging Moroccan army dispersed that year and carried the contagion home with them.

Between 1701 and 1750, how many plague epidemics were recorded in Constantinople?

Another 31 followed between 1751 and 1800; plague remained a major event in Ottoman society until the 1830s.