Black Death skeletons unearthed by Crossrail project

BBC ^ | 29 March 2014 Last updated at 20:00 ET | James Morgan

[BenLurkin]

[faithhopecharity]

they might wish to be careful digging through a Black Death cemetery! just sayin..

[Jewbacca]

Sounds like a really good way to re-start a pandemic.

[SpinnerWebb]

But I’m not dead yet....

[BillT]

Are we going to have another “Black Plaque” from off the bones?

[BenLurkin]

Not if we floss properly.

[Texas Fossil]

Bubonic plague from time to time shows up in New Mexico.

It’s speculated that it is spread by rats that eat pinion pine nuts and urinate on them. Humans pick up the nuts and eat them.

Not sure this is the actual vector, but the plague still exists in the real world. Different strain? Not sure.

[Gay State Conservative]

Have you ever heard of the bubonic plague,Manuel? It was very popular around here at one time.

[Constitution Day]

*snicker*

[Jeff Chandler]

Charterhouse Square near the Barbican

[dsc]

“Not sure this is the actual vector”

A couple of years ago a hunter got it from the vermin infesting a rabbit he shot. I have also heard of plague in prairie dog towns.

[dsc]

I would *really* like to visit the Church of Saint Bartholomew the Great.

[PGR88]

[RJS1950]

A black plaque might form on your teeth if you don’t brush and floss regularly but it won’t come from Y. Pestis.

The transmission vector is insect/animal and from contact with active buboes and body fluids of an infected person.

Dry bones centuries old, no. It is possible to extract Y. Pestis DNA from bones of medieval plague victims but not the bacterium itself.

[faithhopecharity]

I believe the medical scientists say now that the plague is mostly transmitted by fleas (from the rats we always heard about).
Either way, these researchers are well advised to please be careful digging in a Black Death cemetery (not that it hasn’t been done before without spreading the disease, it has....but STILL......fleas are very tiny and hard to see and prevent from spreading...)

[RJS1950]

With the rabbit it was probably still from fleas on the animal. Contact with rabbit blood from a rabbit infected with tularemia can be a big problem. Tularemia can cause blisters and boils along with a pneumonic form and issues with the lymph nodes which are somewhat similar to the diagnostic points for plague.

[RJS1950]

The plague carrying fleas that infected these medieval victims were already dead about the time the bodies were thrown on the cart for disposal. Fleas do not survive being buried in the ground for hundreds of years any more than the bacterium.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks BenLurkin.

[momtothree]

The article states, “Traces of plague bacterium found in some of the teeth”. I guess such a little trace that it wouldn’t bother someone?