Plague
Plague is usually understood as a generic term for Bubonic plague, the mortal disease caused by the bacillus Yersinia pestis, which is spread by fleas from rats to human beings. Plague has reached epidemic and even pandemic proportions during the history of Asia and Europe, disrupting civilizations and altering the course of human affairs when plague brought terror and panic in crowded cities, decimating populations like a visitation of the gods. In the New World, the first contact with Europeans brought pandemics of measles and smallpox, though not of plague, that led to the collapse of American cultures.
See Plague (disambiguation), Yersinia pestis, Bubonic plague.
Famous outbreaks of plague that are examined in their individual entries:
- Great Plague of Athens (430-427 BC)
- causal agent: bubonic plague/smallpox/measles/typhus?
- Antonine Plague (165 – 180)
- causal agent: smallpox/measles?
- Plague of Cyprian (250),
- causal agent: smallpox/measles?
- Plague of Justinian (541 – 542)
- causal agent: bubonic plague
- The "Black Death" of 1347 – 50:
- Great Plague of England (1348-1350)
- causal agent: bubonic plague
- Great Plague of Ireland (1348-1351)
- causal agent: bubonic plague
- Great Plague of Scotland (1348-1350)
- causal agent: bubonic plague
- Great Plague of England (1348-1350)
- Great Plague of Iceland (1402-1404)
- causal agent: bubonic plague
- Great Plague of Milan (1629-1631)
- aka Italian Plague of 1629-1631.
- causal agent: bubonic plague
- Great Plague of London (1664-1665)
- causal agent: bubonic plague
- Great Plague of Vienna (1679-1680's)
- causal agent: bubonic plague
- The Third Pandemic, a third major plague pandemic of historic times, began in China in 1855.
- Great Plague of Athens (430-427 BC)
See also:
- Influenza Pandemic of 1918 or Spanish Flu
- Population history of American indigenous peoples