Europe’s Plagues Came From China, Study Finds
The great waves of plague that twice devastated Europe and changed the course of history had their origins in China , a team of medical geneticists reported Sunday, as did a third plague outbreak that struck less harmfully in the 19th century. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, via Getty Images A bubonic plague smear, prepared from a lymph removed from an adenopathic lymph node, or bubo, of a plague patient, demonstrates the presence of the Yersinia pestis bacteria that causes the plague. And in separate research, a team of biologists reported conclusively this month that the causative agent of the most deadly plague, the Black Death, was the bacterium known as Yersinia pestis. This agent had always been the favored cause, but a vigorous minority of biologists and historians have argued the Black Death differed from modern cases of plague studied in India, and therefore must have had a different cause. The Black...