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Between 1339 and 1351 AD, a pandemic of plague traveled from China to Europe, known in Western history as The Black Death. Carried by rats and fleas along the Silk Road Caravan routes and Spice trading sea routes, the Black Death reached the Mediterranean Basin in 1347, and was rapidly carried throughout Europe from what was then the center of European trade. Eventually, even areas of European settlement as isolated as Viking settlements in Greenland would be ravaged by the plague. By the time these plagues had run their course in 1351, between 25 and 50% of the population of Europe was dead. An equally high toll was exacted from the populations of Arabia, North Africa, South Asia, and East Asia.

Septicaemic plague is, like the bubonic plague, carried by insects. Its distinguishing feature is its rapidity - death occurs within a day of infection, even before buboes have had time to form. This form of the plague is the rarest rare, but is almost always fatal (4).

Pneumonic plague differs from the other two forms in that it can be spread from person to person. After a two to three day incubation period, victims suffer a sharp drop in body temperature, which is followed by sever coughing and discharge of a bloody sputum. This sputum contains the plague bacteria, making for an airborne transmission. As in bubonic plague, neurological and psychological disorders follow. Pneumonic plague is rarer than bubonic, but is fatal in over 95% of its victims (5).