Yersinia Pestis

Origin and Routes of Dissemination Towards the end of the 1330s, a coccobacillus called Yersinia Pestis, which slumbered for centuries in the blood of rats underwent a deadly exodus. The rats were immune to the bacteria in their bloodstream, but not the fleas that fed on their blood. A toxin produced by Yersinia Pestis blocked the abdomen of the flea thus inhibiting it from swallowing the blood it sucked out of the rat. Then, when a flea bit a human, it would deposit the blood from the rat infected with the bacteria into the human’s blood stream. The first victim or patient zero of the plague was thus infected. In 1347, the fast-expanding Mongolian empire sought the acquisition of the strategic town of Caffa, which was a …show more content…
They relied on ancient sources like Aristotle and Hippocrates together with the most erudite people in medicine and astrology at the time. The faculty’s dissertation discussed the plague’s causes and implications in the first part of the treatise while discussing the alleged prevention and cure on the second part. Amongst other things, they suggested that the alignment of the three higher planets caused the corruption of the air and drew up evil vapors from the earth leading to the …show more content…
Both were notable physicians at the time of the black death. Their published list of recommendations albeit slightly different, contained major similarities that were to reappear in all major scientific outlets of the time. They strongly advocate the use of bloodletting which was the process of drawing one’s blood to maintain an adequate balance of humors. This was based on the premise that a human body was made of different humors that had to remain in proper balance to maintain health. Furthermore, they suggest the use of much acids in all food while avoiding too much movement as foul poisoned air will be drawn to the heart. These are a sample of the recommendations made by reputed physicians of the