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Bubonic plague

Winter 2010

The deadly cough

Few creatures in the course of human history have ever been as influential as the one that crawls and jumps and drinks blood in the lab of Viveka Vadyvaloo.

It hit the world stage in the sixth century, starting in Lower Egypt, traveling by ship to Constantinople, then into western Europe. It took about half a century to kill 100 million people, half the earth’s population.

Seven centuries later, it fanned out from the Crimean seaport of Caffa to revisit Constantinople and Sicily, from which it swept through Italy, France, Spain, England, Germany, Austria, and Hungary. One-third of Europe, about 25 million people, was … » More …