Re: Medieval Fleas
From: Simon Pugh (News_at_mrzsp.demonX.co.uk)
Date: 07/31/04
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Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2004 17:25:46 +0100
In message <AcOdnbjgbbq5KJbcRVn-hg@adelphia.com>, Rodney Kelp
<Rodneykelp605@hotmail.com> writes
>I would like to know where the fleas got the plague from?
>Did they give it to the rats? Did the rats give it to the fleas?
>Who had it first and where did the originator get it from?
>
No one knows for sure, but it is though that Y pestis evolved from a
less pathogenic Yersina comparatively recently (in evolutionary terms).
See: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/96/24/14043.pdf
Googing on Yesinia pestis evolution pseudotuberculosis
should find plenty.
One theory is that it was originally a disease of Nile rats (the
original host of X cheopis) and that X cheopis the flea that is good at
transmitting Y pestis adapted to the black rat which lives in closer
proximity to humans that the Nile rat. This was the subject of one of
Inger's original links. But this is just one theory, AFIK no one really
knows.
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046/j.0305-0270.2003.01009
.x/abs/
-- Simon Pugh Remove X for email
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