PLAGUE TALK: NEW BITES OF INSIGHT

Imagine assembling for dinner with agreeable relatives, neighbors, and perhaps even some freeloaders, and just when you are about to stab your fork into a savory fried Mexican grasshopper, a pair of furry critters startle everyone by climbing onto the table. As they are sniffing the edibles, you expertly identify the intruders as mischievous black rats. Your guests recoil in revulsion. They refuse to share any table scraps with the interlopers. Don’t scold your companions for overreacting, if rats arrive at your house unannounced, it may be cause for concern.

Black rats (and marmots) have traditionally been a prime source of food for fleas that shuttle Yersinia Pestis, the bubonic plague bacterium. The opportunistic Yersinia and various cousin strains can be traced back six thousand years. Considering all the suffering the plague has inflicted on mankind over the centuries, this may seem counterintuitive, but the fleas prefer not to feed on humans. Their choice dish is rodents. But in a pinch, when those hunger pangs hit, fleas will swallow their pride and snack on people. When rat colonies are nearly depleted, fleas bond with humans. The most recent evidence indicates that is what occurred during famous outbreaks of the plague. Among the most celebrated were the Black Death of the mid-14th century, and the flurry that struck China and India in the late 19th century. For the latter, Yersinia was finally isolated and identified as the cause of the plague. (Note, for those seeking variety when acquiring ailments, the China/India edition has never closed shop and rears its ugly head on occasion.)

One of the rawest bones of contention is how the disease reached such epic proportions? Like today with so many gadfly conspiracy theorists peddling their COVID twaddle, there was plenty of recrimination. Those of spiritual leanings believed it was because of moral decline. Men and women were wearing their clothes too tight and brazenly revealing enticing body parts. Guys strutting around with bulging codpieces were an affront to God, so He smote their groins. Of course, the Jews were implicated. Blaming Jews has always been a default option in Europe. Supposedly they were secretly poisoning wells. Which doesn’t adequately explain why so many Jews died too. Although admittedly, they did not perish at the rate of the gentile populations. One reason is the Jews were lodged in segregated quarters and were usually more hygienic, thus limiting breeding prospects. And based on the most recent evidence (2020), it was determined that a certain autoimmune disorder – ” Familial Mediterranean Fever”, conferred immunity against the plague. Though other groups had the disorder, it was more common among Jews, affording them more protection but sadly making them targets for the righteous bloodthirsty Christian folks of that era. Regardless of one’s preferred intrigue, the best evidence indicates the plague was incubating a century before it exploded in 1347. Mongol groups who were scattered all over the geographical landscape evidently contracted it in China (but farther west than originally believed) and would pass it on to Europeans. It was conventionally accepted that during the siege of Caffa in Crimea on the Black Sea, the Mongols transmitted the plague to the Genoese (Italians) via biological warfare by catapulting diseased corpses into the city. That account no longer holds up to scrutiny, in fact, the siege really served to delay freight departures because the grain ships couldn’t be loaded and grain was vital to European nourishment. The Mongols were the culprits in tainting the Genoese, but it was only when grain deliveries resumed in the fall of 1346 after the siege did cheerful seafaring Italian merchants bring the vermin stowaways to ports in Europe. This was the “seeding” phase. The plague was dormant during the winter, then when it warmed up in 1347, the disease struck multiple locations simultaneously – ” synchronicity”, and the continent was engulfed in pestilence. If the rat supply could have held out it and not been pulverized, maybe humans would have escaped the fleas’ focus. The Italians might have continued to prosper and ended up ruling the world and everyone would have had to learn sign language.

Shifting from that nation of jovial opera singers back to the real world, to gain a better comprehension of the calamitous pandemics, we have to descend deeper into the tantalizing bowels of rat colonies. For those of you with pet rats, you can probably testify that they are amorous creatures. They have robust and satisfying sex lives and are prolific at producing offspring. One randy rat can beget 100 pups per year. Kind of like the Kardashians. That can make them a nuisance. The rats, that is. For instance, did you know that Washington D.C. has a rat infestation problem? No hidden implications concealed in that remark, just a factual statement. Yet, rats can be fickle, even the ones in D.C. If members of the pack become vulnerable, their comrades resort to cannibalism. It sounds shameless, even pregnant rats are devoured. From rat fucker to rat eater, as the saying goes. The unseemly appetite for one’s mates would have a cascade of effects.

The sequence goes like this: flea bit rat and passed on the plague, the rat got sick and infirm, the other rats ate it, thus absorbing the pathogens, they got sick and died, and eventually you had an epizootic eruption and the rat colony was ravaged. (Epizootic – think epidemic but for rats or other animals.) Once that happened, the fleas sought sustenance elsewhere and migrated to humans, which is designated as a zoonotic contagion. As the rats were doing all this scurrying around, some tried to avoid being consumed while the others strived to wolf them down, a real rat race, if you will. Many rats inhabited human dwellings. Ships, houses, and maybe the local brothel were all fair game. More bang for your buck, you could get an STD and a bonus of bubonic plague at no extra cost. That could make the groin swell.

In fact, a mysterious growth in the groin, bubo (buboes), was an indicator a person had been infected. Matters could get worse and often did when the buboes ruptured, oozing vulgar streams of stinky pus through the crotch. Ripe, sweaty armpits would balloon too, then grotesque strips of body tissue would rot and peel away before one’s wonderstruck eyes. This was the “primary” form, the bubonic plague. Though reportedly painful and even somewhat unappealing, it was really not so bad, if contracted you had a 20 % chance of surviving. The pneumonic version was worse when the microbes went airborne. You know the drill, wear a mask, stay six feet apart. Well of course in the 1300s people didn’t know that, so the effective measures applied in modern pandemics weren’t widely employed and pathogens vaulted from person to person. Although the bacterium could only travel a foot or so when expelled from the nostrils or mouth, the bulk of the population resided in close proximity, so when the snot flew, the body count grew. According to reports, it was not a pleasant send-off to the hereafter, the unfortunate patients drowned in their own blood. Only 1 % survived. Now that you are gasping and desire an end to the sorrows, we advance to what was frequently another stem of the plague, septicemia. This phase was merciless and fast. If you were a virgin like many of the Mennonites here in upstate NY, it was best to discard the clothes and indulge the carnal appetites, the clock was ticking. It would only be a matter of hours before there was massive hemorrhaging and more corpses were added to the ghastly cadaver tally. Septicemia was 100 % fatal.

Humans often made matters worse, they seem to have a knack for that. Being inveterate chowhounds, people had the destructive tendency to eat the meat of germ-ridden animals. This led to still another variation classified as ” Digestive Plague.” It was a surefire cure for constipation and presumably nauseating, with the net result being doom. This line of mortality is more difficult to track because people often nibbled on tainted meat and died of dysentery without the assistance of a pesky flea. And of course there was the usual cast of parasites who would enter the home of a deceased family and pick through their belongings. It was common to swipe clothes, which carried the fleas, which spread the disease. Serves those slackers right. One hopes we never witness a modern revival. If the plague afflicted locations like Rochester and Wayne County, it could potentially wipe out civilization in such places.

Yet even in the worse phases when regions were saturated, there were survivors. For them it was a great time to be alive during the Black Death, or ” Great Mortality” as it was dubbed in the parlance of the times. It was an exciting period, people shouted, some wept, and the more devout sought priests to whom they could confess their multitude of sins. One can only conjecture what those sessions revealed. But for those who were not felled by the scourge, there was a flood of relief, and a lot of free land for the picking as so many previous owners were now deceased. But it was contentment that was short-lived. The plague became endemic and would strike multiple times over the centuries. Summer and early fall featured the worst surges, then winter settled in and the rats who managed to elude fleas made themselves scarce. They began reproducing with enthusiasm and after several years when the population ramped up, the fleas struck again and piggy-backed on the rats and the cycle repeated. More congested demographic centers in France and Italy were subject to regular recurrences. They had the most buildings and homes, so the rats had more places to hide and regroup. Marseilles, a seaport, thus a highly vulnerable spot, would be tormented for nearly four hundred years with the last significant plague invasion occurring in 1721. Sigh, it is a historical surety that the French always get it in the end.

Still, despite their unspeakable depravity, the French worshipped the right god. Whereas the Turks farther east who made bad choices in selecting a deity, saw plague linger into the 19th century. On the bright side, some of their carcasses have been good specimens for DNA analysis, quite helpful in tracking the plague and its mutations. This has led scholars to dismiss alternate theories to the Black Death, such as the conjecture it was really anthrax that left such a frightening death toll. With an abundance of confidence, it can now be declared that it was Yersinia Pestis causing all the mischief. It is valuable to conduct such research as it provides insight into how pandemics work. This enables us to respond to potential widespread virulent threats in our own era, where we can be cocksure that with competent leadership, compliance with protocol and vaccination guidelines, and by amassing thoughts and prayers, we can avert disaster.