Europe's plagues caused by gerbils, not rats

[bcp]

The Black Plague Was Probably Caused By Cute Gerbils, Not Dirty Rats | Gizmodo Australia

"Conventional wisdom has it that the Black Death was spread throughout Europe by nasty, evil dirty, disease-carrying rats. Well, prepare to have your mind blown (and find a new pet): according to a new study, gerbils are more likely to blame."

 

[Scooby074]

Unavailable for comment

 

[OldMcDonald]

That Australian report was a wee bit sensational. A gerbil cannot have anything to do with causing the problem (and there are still cases of bubonic plague occurring in some places) unless it is carrying a flea that is caryying the disease. Fleas were and are the vector.

 

[RalphVa]

Bubonic plague is easily cured now with antibiotics. We did it in a Montagnard village in Vietnam. There was plague there. We gave everyone tetracycline.

Ralph

 

[Dr_Zinj]

There's some serious problems with that article.

1. Gerbils are only native to Africa, India, and Asia. They have never had a wild urban European population; so they'd never have a high enough population to be plague vectors in Europe.
2. Europeans never saw a single gerbil until they were imported in the 1800s (well, except for travels like Marco Polo maybe.) LONG after the black plague in the mid-1300s.
3. Black rats are the plague reservoirs in India today. No reason to believe any different a thousand years ago.
4. Gerbils do not climb aboard ships. Rats do.
5. Marmots on the steppes of Eurasia are known reservoirs for the disease, not gerbils. And marmots, being humungously larger than gerbils, can carry a heck of a lot of fleas.

With all due respect, I think Boris V. Schmida, Ulf Büntgenb, W. Ryan Easterdaya, Christian Ginzlerb, Lars Walløee, Barbara Bramantia, and Nils Chr. Stensetha are full of male bovine digestive end product for both their research and paper on, "Climate-driven introduction of the Black Death and successive plague reintroductions into Europe."

 

[CobyRupert]

Unavailable for comment

Ah, ha, ha. When I heard this story I knew there was a joke somewhere!

 

[OldMcDonald]

There's some serious problems with that article.

That is why I said it was sensational. The gerbils thought responsible are not the little pet ones, but the Asian Giant Gerbil, which as you say are "humungously larger" than the pets. I am not sure if I can make this link clickable (my computer skills are abysmal) but a better explanation of the theory (and still incomplete) is in a BBC article which clearly states that the Giant Gerbils did not travel on the ships. The article is actually better than the extract that is linked to the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" and shows the authors in a much better light, the opening quote of Prof. Stentheth being "If we are right...." BBC News - 'Gerbils replace rats' as main cause of Black Death

 

[5030]

I wonder if gerbils are good eating?

 

[Stimw]

I remember hearing that it was cats that saved the people by killing off the vermin.

 

[CobyRupert]

I remember hearing that it was the Pied Piper who would lead the rats away with his pipe magic for a fee, if the town people didn't pay he would steal their children. Pied Piper of Hamelin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia