September
13
/ 2015
Read Part 1 Science had to wait until the nineteenth century to banish the idea of a supposed supernatural origin of the plague. The fear of a pandemic on a global scale persisted for four centuries (and even longer) after finding that the disease had spread out over vast regions of Asia as well. The Deadly Bacteria behind the Bubonic Plague However, that same fear propelled scientists to search for the origins of the plague. Two bacteriologists, Kitasato and Yersin, independently (but practically in unison) discovered in 1894 that the real cause of the plague was the bacteria Yersinia pestis (named in honor of Yersin.) Yersinia pestis was present in black rats and other rodents and is thought to have
