There have been three waves of plagues: the Justinian plague, the Black Death, and the modern plague. The first epidemic plague was the Justinian plague, which occurred in approximately 542 A.D. The next epidemic plague occurred in 1347 A.D. and was called the Black Death. The third epidemic plague is referred to as the modern plague and began around 1894 A.D. Throughout all of this time, many factors have contributed to the plague and enhanced vulnerability to the epidemic. There have also been different responses from society based on the changes of fear and blame. The effects of the plague have also changed over time. Today, we know more about the transmission of the plague and have established protocols to prevent the transmission.
Factors that contributed to the plague include climate change, lack of sanitation, trade routes, and merchant ships. Trade routes and merchant ships were the main causes for widespread transmission of the disease because they took infected rats into uninfected areas. Society responded out of fear by blaming miraculous events, an imbalance of the elements in the body, evil vapors, and Jews. In an effort to end the plague, people began to pray, hire people from the countryside to bury the dead, and attack Jews’—blaming them for poisoning the village. They also enacted protocols such as a cordon sanitaire—not allowing anyone in or out of the village—which actually spread it by isolating uninfected people with infected people. As a result of the plague, there was a large number of deaths, fear, imitations of Christ’s suffering, witch hunts, and peasants became more wealthy (because they were being paid to bury the dead).
The last plague epidemic in the U.S. occurred in 1924 in Los Angeles, CA. It began in October and was controlled with the month. It began with a patient who claimed to find a rotting rat in his home and picked it up to throw it away, which is likely where the plague originated from. Within a week, the man’s family of eight was dead. Luckily, Los Angeles had learned from past plague epidemics and quickly implemented measures to prevent the transmission of the plague in order to control it. These measures included hospitalizing the sick and anyone that had come into contact with them, a neighborhood quarantine, and a large-scale rat eradication. We now know that fleas infected with Yersinia Pestis would infect and live on rats. Once the rat died, they would need a new host, which ended up being humans. Plague bacteria would starve the flea by causing a build-up in a biofilm. In order to try and clear the blockage, fleas would bite a human, then the flea would puke the blood back into the wound, and as a result, chunks of plague bacillus would also get into the wound.
A more recent instance of the plague occurred in Madagascar in the 1990s, and became epidemic around 2009. Poor hygiene, poverty, political upheaval, health clinics closing, lack of clean water, and accumulated trash attracted rats infected with the plague to Madagascar. Another factor that brought rats closer to humans was the fact that they kept crops inside, food for rats, which carried infected fleas. Many people also unbury the dead in order to consult with them, thus spreading the plague.
Despite the knowledge that we now have about the plague and other diseases, they still re-emerge with new adaptations that we must face. Our society will continue to adapt and change to prevent such diseases; however, the diseases will adapt to infect our society at the same time.
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