Just pondering

[James Marusek 5,244]

This thread has nothing to do with weight loss surgery but it was interesting.

I ponder a lot. One of several thousand things that I ponder over is the bubonic plague which also goes by the name the Black Death. This was a series of plagues that struck the world during the Middle Ages. The plague is believed to be the cause of the Black Death that swept through Asia, Europe, and Africa in the 14th century and killed an estimated 50 million people. This was about 25% to 60% of the European population. People were dropping like flies.

It is commonly thought that the plague was transmitted by fleas that traveled with rats. But I think this may not be true. I suspect that the real transmission agent was man, specifically individuals infected with the plague that traveled across the world.

So this morning I read an article about research from a group at Fordham University, published in Molecular Ecology, compared the genetic makeup of 262 brown rats (Rattus norvegicus) living in Manhattan. What they found was

It is estimated that rats came to Manhattan between 1750-1770 on ships from Western Europe, particularly France and England. Despite NYC being the melting pot that it is, the DNA from rats of today still closely resembles their earliest European ancestors.

What the analysis of the genetic diversity found is that rats don't move far from where they were born. Within the island, they found two main evolutionary clusters - uptown and downtown Manhattan. In addition, the rats stay even more local than that. It is rare that they even move off of their block.

https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/12/07/nyc-rats-moving-fuhgeddaboudit-12252

So rats do not travel far from home but man does. And if this type of plague occurs again, it can travel across the world in a heartbeat because we travel by air, by sea and by land.

So I ponder if the medical community will be up to the challenge. When I was young I was vaccinated against the bubonic plague. It was the worst shot I ever received. A hundred times more painful than the shot for small pox. The plague still exists in the world today and we know how to treat it. But I suspect if this plague ever rises again it will be a deadly genetic variant that the world must deal with.

[Real California April 76]

Yeah but fleas don't stick to one area. From my understanding, multiple types of flea can carry plague. Also fleas don't discriminate. They will bite and live on just about any mammal and Europeans brought Pets with them. It's not like they slapped Frontline on them before coming.

Recently some fleas carrying plague were found on Squirrels near my area. Yep beware of squirrels.

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