Do prairie dogs ever carry the black death?
I suppose it’s possible; did a quick search on “bubonic vectors”, and right away came up with a case in Brazil where not only small rodents but a couple of dogs were found with infected fleas.
Hope you’re not seeing something bad going on!
On the other hand, this:
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2002/04/04-23-02tdc/04-23-02dscihealth-04.asp
Hmm.
Please don’t die of Plague, Walden.
… any particular reason for this question?
Plot synopsis for made for tv movie –
Researcher exhumes Black Death victim
Researcher isolates bacteria responsible for Black Death
Researcher cultivates bacteria and keeps it in a jar on her desk.
Janitor knocks jar over, spilling it on floor.
Janitor fills jar back up with watered down Coors.
Janitor doesn’t wash his hands and goes to second job at local McDonalds.
BigMac-borne plague spreads like wildfire; millions and millions of deaths worldwide.
US uses it as an excuse to declare war on and occupy Venezuela.
This is plausible.
And which bit isn’t?
Since 1959, the Fort Collins, Colorado branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recorded 393 cases of plague in humans. Of the 240 cases (61 percent) for which a source of infection was identified, 31 (13 percent) were attributed to contact with prairie dogs or their fleas, from actually handling the animals. Only two (both in Colorado) of the 31 cases were in areas where the black-tailed prairie dog is the only species of prairie dog that could have been the source of infection
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Division of Vector Borne Infectious Diseases, Bacterial Zoonosis Branch, Plague Section, unpublished data, 1998).
During the last five years (1994 through December 7, 1998) there were 40 human plague cases in the United States. Of the 17 cases for which a source of infection was identified, 9 were attributed to prairie dogs.
That was from here.
I think that other article misunderestimated the ubiquitiosity of rats during the middle ages and their propensity for hitching a ride with humans across, say, rivers and mountains. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I recall that a great deal of the Black Death was pneumonic plague, which doesn’t require fleas because it’s airborne.
Interesting, though I wouldn’t want to be the grad student digging around in those bones. I can see the headlines now . . . “Grad student infected with hundreds-year-old organisms from disease formerly known as the Black Death.”
Many thanks to Dubh for helping me with the URL!
Lamby,
“That was from http://mountain-prairie.fws.gov/species/mammals/btprairiedog/plague.htm.”
Remove “here]” from the above line. Replace “]” after the htm, then insert “here”.
That should give you
“That was from here.”
Slan,
D. 
Yaaay! It worked! Thanks! 
Whatever happened to the Monroe Doctrine? 
I have never eaten and will never eat a “BigMac.” Ever. So I guess I’m immune to the plague!!
Ground squirrels here in Calaforny do, including up at Lake Tahoe.
Don’t count your chickens yet boy. There weren’t any BigMacs floating around in 1347 
Slan,
D.
Monrow Doctrine says Europe can’t invade Venezuela, or any other part of Latin America. It doesn’t say the U.S. can’t, and a good thing it doesn’t because we’ve done it plenty of times. I think we also looked the other way during that Faulklands thing.
When did you sneak in the Katy avatar? I did not realize it was a Waldco acquisition; I thought the MoPac bought it.
Whacking huge picture of Union Pacific EMD in Katy colors
Here’s a link to a story from April 2006 about a woman in Los Angeles who had the plague: http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/04/18/D8H2OUH87.html
The Katy MKT thing reminds me very much not of Satan but of the Salvation Army logo.
Dubh, there’s a body of opinion that the Yurpeen plague of 1347 was Ebola, not Bubonic. It accounts for Yurpeens being resistant to Ebola, whereas Africans are not.
I don’t know if I buy that one. In most accounts the swollen lymph nodes are described in detail which would make it pestis bubonica.
However I wouldn’t rule out a variety of possible organisms lumped together under the term “plague” due to the lack of medical knowledge of those days.