Bin away again, but I'm back in black:
LA Woman Hospitalized With Bubonic Plague, Alicia Chang, AP Science, 18 Apr 2006You may wonder about the bubonic plague - didn't it do bad things in the middle ages? Wasn't there an Edgar Allen Poe story about this?LOS ANGELES: A woman was hospitalized earlier this month with bubonic plague, the first confirmed human case in Los Angeles County in more than two decades, health officials said Tuesday.
The woman, who was not identified, was admitted April 13 with a fever, swollen lymph nodes and other symptoms. A blood test confirmed she had contracted the bacterial disease. The woman was placed on antibiotics and is in stable condition, officials said.
Bubonic plague is not contagious, but if left untreated it can morph into pneumonic plague, which can be spread from person to person. Bubonic plague is usually transmitted to humans from the bites of fleas infected by dead rodents.
Yes, and yes.
Bubonic plague, also known as the Black Death, killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe between 1346 and 1351.more.
Incidentally, the estimates of Europe's death tolls are higher when you realise this was a third of the population that died in a five-year span. Wikipedia notes,
In addition to its drastic effect on Europe's population, the plague irrevocably changed Europe's social structure, was a serious blow to Europe's predominant religious institution (the Christian Church), resulted in widespread persecution of minorities such as Jews and lepers, and created a general mood of morbidity that influenced people who were uncertain of their daily survival to live for the moment.Wonder how HIV will affect the world in, say, 10 years?
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