What we have not tamed yet and will not be taming in the near future, in the world is the ancient species of microbes that are spread all around us. Just in the last year there have been reports of 24 different types of flues. The UN have let out notices of the huge threat that mankind may face due to the microbes. With the modern day irregular life style, it will just get worse..
For over 200 years plague raged in the Mediterranean countries and claimed lives of at least 45 million people
Nobody knows when plague appeared. Experts say that plague pestholes still exist in remote parts of Central Asia and some South African countries, Namibia, Angola and South African Republic. And supposedly, the disease had its sources right on these territories. Long ago researchers determined that the plague bacillus lives in organisms of wild rodents and is carried by fleas. But it was just in the mid-1980s that researchers managed to say how an epidemic breaks out. As it turned out, plague pandemic breaks out because of drought. Hungry, weak and diseased rodents abandon their native places in search of food and thus spread plague over vast territories. Sooner or later they reach human habitation. Fleas infected with plague bacilli cling to domestic rodents for which plague turns to be fatal. Then, fleas jump on dogs, cats and humans.
Nobody knows when plague appeared. Experts say that plague pestholes still exist in remote parts of Central Asia and some South African countries, Namibia, Angola and South African Republic. And supposedly, the disease had its sources right on these territories. Long ago researchers determined that the plague bacillus lives in organisms of wild rodents and is carried by fleas. But it was just in the mid-1980s that researchers managed to say how an epidemic breaks out. As it turned out, plague pandemic breaks out because of drought. Hungry, weak and diseased rodents abandon their native places in search of food and thus spread plague over vast territories. Sooner or later they reach human habitation. Fleas infected with plague bacilli cling to domestic rodents for which plague turns to be fatal. Then, fleas jump on dogs, cats and humans.
This exchange of the infection is particularly dangerous for people. Just few percent of diseased people survived in the epochs when mankind knew no insecticides or antibiotics. It is believed that the first plague epidemic that left reliable evidence broke out in the 12th century B.C. Old Testament mentions mice that spoiled the ground.
Another plague epidemic gripped all countries of the civilized world and thus was called a pandemic; it came to the Upper Nile from Central Africa in 541. The plague killed thousands of people and reached Alexandria of Egypt, a busy port where tens of merchant vessels dropped anchor every day. Alexandria granaries were packed with grain and certainly there were flocks of rats. This fact predetermined the history of Europe for many centuries ahead. For less than a year plague reached Constantinople where 10,000 people died every day at the epidemic peak. Plague made the Byzantine Empire vulnerable to aggressive neighbors and became the reason of its subsequent extinction.
For over 200 years plague raged in the Mediterranean countries and claimed lives of at least 45 million people. Fourteen outbursts of plague on vast territories were registered over the period. But then plague mysteriously disappeared all of a sudden. So, when plague reappeared in 1346 people did not remember the fatal disease and believed they were facing the doomsday.
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