Needstrat: The Black Death's last victim in Norway

On 7 January 1350 the last known victim of the Black Death in Norway, the Bishop of Stavanger, Guttorm Pålsson dies. He is among 50 million Europeans who succumb to the plague– that constitutes 60% of the 80 million inhabitants - the worst epidemic ever to strike Europe. Recent research finds that the bacteria Yersinia pestis was responsible. Yersinia pestis was also responsible for the Plague of Justinian (542–740 CE) and the third pandemic which struck Asia and America at the end of 19^th century. It is still active in wild rodent populations like rats and squirrels, but modern health care means that few die from the disease today. Research is valuable, one study find that the bacteria has a kind of “stealth shield” which allows it to go undetected by the body’s defence systems. A laboratory-made gene-modification makes the stealth ability disappear, and the body recognise and neutralize the intruder.

http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/67758/Black-Death

The spread of the Black Death in Europe.

The Justinian plague
During the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I (527–565 CE) a plague broke out in Egypt in 542 CE. It spread to Constantinople killing 5000 a day, so many that the authorities had problems burying them. Then it spread westwards to the port cities of the Mediterranean, probably through fleas on rats, and to other parts of Asia and Arabia. It lasted until around 740 and around 25 million may have died according to Nils Chr. Stenseth, professor at the Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES).

http://www.infectionlandscapes.org/2011/05/plague.html

A bubo on a man’s thigh, caused by the same bacteria as the Black Death.

The Black Death
The Black Death is thought to have originated in the in the Mongol Khanate the Golden Horde in 1346. It spread to a besieged city on the Crimea in 1346, and probably spread to Mediterranean ports. From there it went northwards in Europe. People didn’t know how the plague spread, some thought it was spread through the air. For generations a story has been told in Norway “A ship arrived in Bergen in 1349…” Another theory postulates that it arrived in Oslo the year before, but that because of the winter cold, the outbreak halted until the next spring. The only places not affected were Poland and Iceland.

Repeating plague: The plague came back several times over the next 300 years. Then it seems to have disappeared in Europe. Europe had been worst hit with 50 million dead; another 25 million people may have perished elsewhere. So many died, that the population number in Europe was not back on level until the 16^th century.

Positive effects: But there were some positive effects of the Black Death as well. The farmers cultivating poor soil moved to better farms. Many labourers in cities died, and in general there was a lack of labour, so wages increased. A theory has been presented by two German economists Hans-Joachim Voth (ICREA Research Professor of Economics, UPF and CREI, Barcelona and CEPR Research Fellow) and

Nico Voigtländer (Assistant Professor of Economics at the UCLA Anderson School of Management) that this led to a general surplus income. And this income was spent on manufactured goods. These goods were produced in cities, which grew, and trade was stimulated. The wealth was taxed by the rulers, who could spend them on wars. Because of wars, death rates continued on a high level, keeping the survivors on high income. These economies escaped the so-called Malthusian trap which keeps labour productivity and development low. See explanation in their article.

The third pandemic

The plague continued to prevail in Turkey, North Africa, Syria and Greece. Then it came to India in 1815. But the third great pandemic started in Yunnan province, China in the 1850s and reached Hong Kong in 1884. From there it spread throughout the world including the USA, taking around 10 million lives. India was worst hit with around 7 million alone.

http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/462675/plague

Map showing the locations of plague outbreaks in the 1800s and early 1900s. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Research

Two different scientists, the French Alexandre Yersin, and Japanese Kitasato Shibasaburo identified the bacteria by taking fluid samples from victims. The bacteria was first named Pasteurella from Yersin’s employer Pasteur Institute, but renamed in honour of Yersin in 1970. But still it was not known how the bacteria infected people. Some had notice that huge numbers of deaths had preceded the outbreak of the plague in India and China. A French researcher sent to India found that the oriental rat flea carried the infested bacteria and could also bite and infect humans. With this knowledge massive campaigns to limit the numbers of rats in harbours and ships were taken. From the 1930s, Sulfa drugs and antibiotics gave doctors efficient tools attacking the bacteria directly. From one million dead in 1907, it dropped to around 200 a year today. The main regions with plague today is seen on the map below.

http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/photos/plague/#/plague-bacteria_9448_600x450.jpg

Yersinia pestis

Another mystery resolved

The symptoms and research indicated that Yersinia pestis was responsible for the Justinian Plague. But it was not until 2013 that scientists from the Johannes Gutenberg Universität in Mainz, Germany proved it. “Bramanti and her Mainz colleague Stephanie Hänsch now cooperated with scholars from Arizona in a study led by the University of Munich and the German Bundeswehr to solve the debate as to whether Y. pestis caused the so-called Justinianic Plague of the 6th-8th centuries AD. The results of ancient DNA analyses carried out on the early medieval cemetery of Aschheim in Bavaria were published last week in PloS Pathogens. They confirmed unambiguously that Y. pestis was indeed the causing agent of the first pandemic, in contrast to what has been postulated by other scientists recently. This revolutionary result is supported by the analysis of the genotype of the ancient strain which provide information about the phylogeny and the place of origin of this plague. As for the second and third pandemic, the original sources of the plague bacillus were in Asia“.