Yersinia pestis -- Codename: Black Death

Yersinia pestis, commonly known as the Black Death, is the only member of the genus Yersinia that's considered harmful. It terrorized Europe, killing off an estimated 25 million humans, roughly one third of the area's population, and uncounted livestock between the years of 1347 A.D. and 1352 A.D. It is unknown exactly when, where, and by whom the disease was first discovered. What is certain is that it was first brought to Europe, from Asia, courtesy of ship rats carrying the Oriental Rat Flea. The fleas transferred to humans, as fleas tended to do then, and thus began the spread of the plague. When people recognized the plague in their area, they fled to other places, as people tended to do, inadvertently allowing the plague to hitch-hike it's way across Europe and even parts of northern Africa.

Black Death manifests itself in three different ways depending on how the victim contracts it. The forms are:

Modern sanitation and improved societal hygene has kept the Black Death well at bay in the Western hemisphere for the past few hundred years, and when it does surface it can be dealt with quite well (most of the time) by modern medicine. But we can always look back with fondness on the good ol' days with the Scourge of Europe!

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