Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Maps
- Contents
- List of Maps, Figures and Tables
- Preface to the First Edition
- Author’s Note on the New and Revised Edition
- Acknowledgements
- Glossary
- Part I What Was the Black Death?
- Part II The Origin of Bubonic Plague and the History of Plague before the Black Death
- Part III The Outbreak and Spread of the Black Death
- Part IV Mortality in the Black Death
- Part V A Turning Point in History?
- Bibliography
- Index
- Subject Index
- Index of Geographical Names and People
- Name Index
34 - The Black Death Established a Plague Reservoir among Black Rats and the Realm of the Second Plague Pandemic
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 January 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Maps
- Contents
- List of Maps, Figures and Tables
- Preface to the First Edition
- Author’s Note on the New and Revised Edition
- Acknowledgements
- Glossary
- Part I What Was the Black Death?
- Part II The Origin of Bubonic Plague and the History of Plague before the Black Death
- Part III The Outbreak and Spread of the Black Death
- Part IV Mortality in the Black Death
- Part V A Turning Point in History?
- Bibliography
- Index
- Subject Index
- Index of Geographical Names and People
- Name Index
Summary
Epidemic reflections
Biraben’s lists of plague epidemics register 8,068 outbreaks of plague in Europe in the nearly 300 years of the Second Plague Pandemic from the end of the Black Death to the time epidemic countermeasures began to have significant effect around the mid-1600s, namely the period 1356–1649. This indicates that on average 28 plague epidemics broke out in Europe each year, many of them simultaneously and independently at long distances. This feature of plague in Europe and adjacent regions in this period evidently must be some effect of the Black Death and reflect the presence of a source of persistence and continuity of plague.
In 2000 Keeling and Gilligan published an important article on ‘Metapopulation Dynamics of Bubonic Plague’ containing mathematical modelling of rat-and-rat-flea-based bubonic plague that demonstrated reasons for the persistence and recurrence of bubonic plague epidemics. By definition, a metapopulation consists of a group of spatially separated populations of the same species, in this case black rats, which interact at some social level or by some means of contact. This model is entirely based on the conventional theory that black rats and their consort of fleas (X. cheopis) constitute the epidemiological dynamics of the transmission and dissemination of bubonic plague, including in Europe: ‘bubonic plague is driven by the dynamics of the disease in the rat population’. It accords with all standard works on plague, and with the primary studies on plague. Within this conventional framework, Keeling and Gilligan developed an analytical explanatory model for the understanding of certain observed aspects of plague that reflected lasting effects of the Black Death because there was a dense presence of black rats where plague was circulating:
bubonic plague can persist in relatively small rodent populations from which occasional human epidemics arise, without the need for external imports. This explains why historically the plague persisted despite long disease-free periods, and how the disease re-occurred in cities with tight quarantine control. In fact, relatively small rodent metapopulations (50,000 individuals) allow the disease to persist globally for many years […]
Because bubonic plague is a zoonosis, primarily passed from rats (via fleas) to humans, there is no ‘herd immunity’ effect. […] This highlights the importance of considering bubonic plague as an epizootic infection and explicitly modelling the rat dynamics.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Complete History of the Black Death , pp. 638 - 644Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2021