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A burial ground was known to be in an area outside the City of London, but its exact location remained a mystery. Thirteen bodies have been found so far in the 5.5m-wide shaft at the edge of Charterhouse Square, alongside pottery dated to the mid-14th Century. Analysis will shed light on the plague and the Londoners of the day. DNA taken from the skeletons may also help chart the development and spread of the bacterium that caused the plague that became known as the Black Death. Charterhouse Square lies in an area that was once outside the walls of London, referred to at the time as "No-man's Land".
The skeletons' arrangement in two neat rows suggests they date from the earliest era of the Black Death, before it fully developed into the pandemic that in later years saw bodies dumped haphazardly into mass graves. Archaeologists working for Crossrail and the Museum of London will continue to dig in a bid to discover further remains, or any finds from earlier eras. The £14.8bn Crossrail project aims to establish a 118km-long (73-mile) high-speed rail link with 37 stations across London, and is due to open in 2018. Because of the project's underground scope, significant research was undertaken into the archaeology likely to be found during the course of the construction.
Taken together, the project's 40 sites comprise one of the UK's largest archaeological ventures. Teams have already discovered skeletons near Liverpool Street, a Bronze-Age transport route, and an array of other finds, including the largest piece of amber ever found in the UK. "We've found archaeology from pretty much all periods - from the very ancient prehistoric right up to a 20th-Century industrial site, but this site is probably the most important medieval site we've got," said Jay Carver, project archaeologist for Crossrail. "This is one of the most significant discoveries - quite small in extent but highly significant because of its data and what is represented in the shaft," he told BBC News.
The find is providing more than just a precise location for the long-lost burial ground, said Nick Elsden, project manager from the Museum of London Archaeology, which is working with Crossrail on its sites. "We've got a snapshot of the population from the 14th Century - we'll look for signs that they'd done a lot of heavy, hard work, which will show on the bones, and general things about their health and their physique," he added. "That tells us something about the population at the time - about them as individual people, as well as being victims of the Black Death."
More BBC News - 'Black Death pit' unearthed by Crossrail project
Analysis of the bodies and of wills registered in London at the time has cast serious doubt on facts that every schoolchild has learned for decades: That the epidemic was caused by a highly contagious strain spread by the fleas on rats. Now evidence taken from the human remains found in Charterhouse Square, to the north of the City of London (the financial district), during excavations carried out as part of the construction of the Crossrail train line (a 118km railway line serving London and its environs), have suggested a different cause: Only an airborne infection could have spread so fast and killed so quickly.
The Black Death arrived in Britain from central Asia in the autumn of 1348 and by late the next spring it had killed six out of every 10 people in London. Such a rate of destruction would kill 5 million now. By extracting the DNA of the disease bacterium, Yersinia pestis, from the largest teeth in some of the skulls retrieved from the square, the scientists were able to compare the strain of bubonic plague preserved there with that which was recently responsible for killing 60 people in Madagascar. To their surprise, the 14th-century strain, the cause of the most lethal catastrophe in recorded history, was no more virulent than todays disease. The DNA codes were an almost perfect match.
According to scientists working at Public Health England (an executive agency of the UK Ministry of Health) in Porton Down, southwest England, for any plague to spread at such a pace it must have got into the lungs of those victims who were most malnourished and then been spread by coughs and sneezes. It was therefore a pneumonic plague rather than a bubonic plague. In other words, it was one in which infection is spread human to human, rather than when a rat flea bites a sick person and then bites another victim.
As an explanation for the Black Death in its own right, it simply isnt good enough. It cannot spread fast enough from one household to the next to cause the huge number of cases that we saw during the Black Death epidemics, said Tim Brooks from Porton Down. In support of the growing case that this was a fast-acting, direct contagion, archeologist Barney Sloane discovered that in the medieval City of London all wills had to be registered at the Court of Hustings. The documents lead him to believe that 60 percent of Londoners were wiped out.
Black Death may have been airborne infection: scientists - Taipei Times
The Marquette County adult is recovering after apparently contracting the flea-borne illness during a trip to Colorado. Officials are reassuring the public there is no cause for alarm, despite the disease's connection to the microorganism that caused the Black Death plague in Europe in the 1300s, killing millions and reshaping history. "It’s same organism but, in this case, the infection resides in a lymph node," said Dr. Terry Frankovich, medical director for the Marquette County Health Department. The bubonic plague, in fact, is notably marked by one or more swollen, tender and painful lymph nodes, usually in the groin, armpit or neck.
With the bubonic plague, people are most often infected by bites from infected fleas or when they have direct contact with the tissues or body fluids from an infected animal. The highest risk is in settings that offer food and shelter for rodents — campsites and cabins, for example, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. The Michigander's case did not develop into the more contagious pneumonic form of the plague. Pneumonic plague may be passed between humans, infecting the lungs and causing a rapidly developing pneumonia that can lead to respiratory failure and shock, according to the CDC.
A third form, septicemic, occurs when the plague organism multiplies in the blood, and it can lead to shock, organ failure and — as in the case of a Colorado teen earlier this year — death. "Theoretically, the illness can move to bloodstream or to a lung infection, but this (Michigan) individual had localized infection, so there’s no concern about transmission," Frankovich said. In fact, the adult is recovering after a hospitalization and diagnosis "within the past weeks." A lab confirmed the culture Monday, Frankovich said. State officials echoed the reassurance.
In the Michigan case, “truly there is no risk to anyone,” said Jennifer Smith, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. “This is not something that occurs (in) Michigan. … This is a person who contracted this while they were away, and the individual is making a recovery and is not a public health (threat).” The plague is rare, with an average of seven human cases reported across the U.S. each year, according to the CDC. However, the western U.S. is experiencing an increase in reported cases of plague in 2015, with 14 human cases, including four deaths reported. The reason for the increase is not known.
Bubonic plague case confirmed in Michigan
Over the course of eight days in August 1667, Elizabeth Hancock lost her six children and her husband. Covering her mouth with a handkerchief against the stench of decay, she dragged their bodies to a nearby field and buried them. Hancock’s loved ones were victims of the Black Death, the deadly plague that intermittently reared its head in Europe between the 13th and 17th Centuries, killing an estimated 150 million people. The epidemic of 1664 to 1666 was particularly notorious, and the last major outbreak of the disease in England. Some 100,000 people, one quarter of the city’s population, died in London alone.
Amid the devastation, the sleepy Peak District village of Eyam, home to Hancock and her family, became the site of one of the most heroic acts of self-sacrifice in British history – and one of the main reasons the plague’s march was halted. Today, in Eyam, located 35 miles southeast of Manchester, all seems well in the world. Children pick fat purple blackberries from the hedgerows just outside the village; cyclists speed down the treacherously steep roads, their wheels slicking over fallen leaves. A pretty commuter village of 900 residents, Eyam has all the requisite English attractions: pubs, cosy cafes and an idyllic church.
Stand here 450 years ago, though, and you would have looked down onto a village ravaged by the Black Death. You would have seen empty streets, the doors daubed with white crosses, and heard the wails of the dying from behind closed doors. The plague reached Eyam in the summer of 1665 when a London merchant sent flea-infested cloth samples to the local tailor, Alexander Hadfield. Within a week, Hadfield’s assistant, George Vickers, had died a prolonged and agonising death. Before long, the rest of the household had fallen ill and died.
MORE Did this sleepy village stop the Black Death?
Bubonic plague is believed to be the source of the "Black Death," a pandemic that swept through Asia, Europe and Africa in the 14th century and killed up to 50 million people, according to modern estimates. The disease has never been eradicated, and the bacterium that infects humans lives on in the wild - most often in fleas but also in woodland rodents such as squirrels or chipmunks. Plague is rare in humans, and is treatable with antibiotics if caught early, but federal authorities report there has been a puzzling increase in cases this year, for unknown reasons.
Fleas are the main transmitters of plague.
"Many people think of the plague as a disease of the past, but it's still very much present in our environment, particularly among wildlife,” said Emilio DeBess, a veterinarian who works for the state public health division in Oregon, which confirmed details of the current case. “Fortunately, plague remains a rare disease, but people need to take appropriate precautions with wildlife and their pets to keep it that way."
Anyone infected by bubonic plague generally develops symptoms such as chills, headache, weakness and a bloody or watery cough within a few days. Oregon has only seen eight cases of bubonic plague since 1995, none of them fatal. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 1,006 cases of plague in the U.S. between 1900 and 2012. Eighty percent were victims of bubonic plague - one of three varieties of plague caused by the same bacterium, Yersinia pestis.
US Teen Seriously Ill With Bubonic Plague
The plague of 1665-1666 was the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in Britain, killing nearly a quarter of London's population. It's taken a year to confirm initial findings from a suspected Great Plague burial pit during excavation work on the Crossrail site at Liverpool Street. About 3,500 burials have been uncovered during excavation of the site. Daniel Defoe's 18th century account of the catastrophic event in A Journal of the Plague Year described the gruesome fate of Londoners. "The plague, as I suppose all distempers do, operated in a different manner on differing constitutions; some were immediately overwhelmed with it, and it came to violent fevers, vomitings, insufferable headaches, pains in the back, and so up to ravings and ragings with those pains," Defoe wrote. "Others with swellings and tumours in the neck or groin, or armpits, which till they could be broke put them into insufferable agonies and torment; while others, as I have observed, were silently infected."
Evidence of the pathogen had eluded archaeologists but seemed tantalisingly close when a suspected mass grave was discovered last year during a Crossrail dig at the Bedlam burial ground, also known as the New Churchyard, in East London. Alison Telfer from Museum of London Archaeology (Mola) showed me around the area planned for one of the downward escalators going into the future Broadgate ticket hall at Liverpool Street. "We've found about three-and-a-half thousand burials on this site," she told the BBC's Today programme. "We've been working here for the last five-and-half-years on and off and we're hoping we'll be able to get positive identification of the plague on a number of the individuals. "Because of the position of the skeletons, they'd obviously been laid in coffins & put in very respectfully, nobody was thrown in anywhere in presumably what must have been quite a traumatic event."
This revelation is somewhat at odds with Daniel Defoe's version of events: "Tis certain they died by heaps and were buried by heaps; that is to say, without account." Panic and disorder only came towards the end of The Great Plague. Vanessa Harding, professor of London history at Birkbeck, University of London, describes the experience of Londoners at the time. "Not many people who actually get it survive but some do. And it seems to be quite easily transferred from person to person even if we're not sure currently about the agency or way in which this actually happens," Prof Harding said. "But there are also what we might consider public health measures which from their point of view include killing cats and dogs, getting rid of beggars in the streets, trying to cleanse the city in both moral and practical terms. The people who do best are those who get out of London."
The search for the bacteria Yersinia pestis, which causes plague, in a selection of skeletons from the dig continued last year in the osteology department at Mola where all the Liverpool Street finds were stored and examined by Michael Henderson. "They're carefully boxed, individual elements, legs separately, arms separately, the skulls and the torsos," he explained. "We excavated in the region of three and a half thousand skeletons, one of the largest archaeologically excavated to this date. A vast data set that can give us really meaningful information." The bones are laid out in anatomical order. Teeth are removed and sent for ancient DNA analysis at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany. "The best thing to sample for DNA is the teeth; they're like an isolated time capsule," said Mr Henderson.
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All three patients — a 63-year-old man and two women, ages 52 and 62 — were treated at hospitals in the Santa Fe area and released after a few days, said Paul Rhien, a health department spokesman. Health officials in New Mexico have more experience with plague than many might expect: Every year for the last few years, a handful of people in New Mexico have come down with plague. One person has died. While the word “plague” may conjure images of medieval cities laid to waste by the Black Death, the disease is still a part of the modern world. It is much less common than it once was, but it is no less serious.
What Is Plague?
Plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which humans get when they are bitten by rodent-riding fleas. It decimated European cities during the Middle Ages, killing tens of millions of people, but today is found mostly in rural areas. There are three main types of plague in humans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: bubonic plague, pneumonic plague and septicemic plague. All three share general symptoms — like fever, weakness and chills — but each subtype carries its own fearsome markers. Pneumonic plague causes a rapid and severe form of pneumonia that can lead to respiratory failure and shock. It is the only type that can be spread person-to-person through the air if someone inhales infected water droplets.
Septicemic plague, which attacks a person’s blood cells, can cause skin or other tissue to turn black and die, especially on the extremities, like hands and feet. It is caused by either an infected flea bite or by handling an infected animal. Bubonic plague is the best-known and common form of the disease. It is marked by the sudden appearance of bulbously swollen and painful lymph nodes (called buboes) in the groin or armpits.
How Deadly Is Plague?
It can be very deadly. Fifty to 60 percent of the cases of bubonic plague are fatal if they are not treated quickly, according to the World Health Organization. Paul Ettestad, the public health veterinarian for New Mexico, said plague can be treated with antibiotics like gentamicin and doxycycline, but it is important to catch it fast. Pneumonic and septicemic plague can be more serious. The World Health Organization described them as “invariably fatal,” but there are some people who have survived these forms of the disease.
In 2002, a married couple from New Mexico contracted plague at home and developed symptoms while they were on vacation in New York. One of the patients, John Tull, developed septicemic plague. Mr. Tull’s kidneys nearly failed, and tissue in his feet and hands turned black and began to die. He was placed in a three-month medically induced coma and doctors amputated both his legs below the knee, but he survived.
How Common Is Plague?
More than a million doses of antibiotics have been delivered by the World Health Organization to fight an outbreak of plague in Madagascar which has killed at least 33 people. The authorities have also banned prison visits in the two worst affected areas to prevent the spread of the disease. The risk of contamination is high in overcrowded and unsanitary jails. There has recently been criticism of the government's perceived slow reaction to the outbreak.
The health ministry says the latest bout of plague has infected about 230 people - in addition to those who have died - in just two months. There are normally about 400 cases of plague every year in the country. This year however the majority of cases are of pneumonic plague, which affects the lungs and is transmitted through coughing. It is considered to be the most deadly form of the disease and can be fatal within 24 hours. The less deadly bubonic plague is often spread by rodents fleeing forest fires. Humans usually become ill after being bitten by infected fleas. Public gatherings have been banned in response to the latest outbreak.
A specialised hospital in the capital Antananarivo is struggling to cope with the influx of ill people, local media reported, with long queues outside for face masks and medicine. This year urban areas have been affected, a development that has worried aid agencies in a country not renowned for a robust healthcare system. "Plague is curable if detected in time. Our teams are working to ensure that everyone at risk has access to protection and treatment. The faster we move, the more lives we save," WHO Madagascar Representative Charlotte Ndiaye said in a statement.
When did the latest outbreak begin?
It is unclear when the disease first broke out but the first death occurred on 28 August when a passenger died in a public service vehicle in the town of Moramanga, on the east coast. Two others persons who came had come into contact with the passenger later died, with two more succumbing to the disease in the centre of the island. A Seychellois basketball coach died in a hospital in Antananarivo on 27 September during the Indian Ocean Basketball Championship.
Which areas are affected?
"WHO is concerned that plague could spread further because it is already present in several cities and this is the start of the epidemic season, which usually runs from September to April," said Charlotte Ndiaye, the World Health Organization (WHO) Representative in Madagascar in a news update. Plague is a disease of poverty. It thrives in places with poor sanitary conditions and inadequate health services. It can kill quickly if left untreated, but can also be cured by common antibiotics if delivered early, according to WHO. The Government of Madagascar has confirmed that the death of a Seychellois basketball coach visiting the nation for a sports event was due to pneumonic plague. He died in the hospital in Antananarivo on 27 September.
Health authorities are tracing people with whom he came in contact, thus exposing them, to administer antibiotics as a precautionary measure to prevent infection. The incident brings the total number of dead to 21 since the outbreak was identified in late August while at least 114 others have been infected. "Our teams are on the ground in Madagascar providing technical guidance, conducting assessments, supporting disease surveillance and engaging with communities," Dr. Ndiaye explained.
Further deployments of WHO staff and response partners in the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network are underway, as well as increased supplies of antibiotics, personal protective equipment and other supplies. "We are doing everything we can to support the Government"s efforts, including by coordinating health actors," she added.
The Malagasy Red Cross is also scaling-up community surveillance, contact tracing and communication in to stem the spread as it points out that the bubonic plague bacterium can travel to a person"s lungs, causing pneumonic plague, which can spread quickly from person to person through droplets in the air. WHO has released $300,000 in emergency funds, as well as critical medical supplies, to quickly scale up operational efforts, and is appealing for $1.5 million to support the response.
Plague is endemic to Madagascar, where around 400 cases of " mostly bubonic " plague are reported annually. Contrary to past outbreaks, this one is affecting large urban areas, which increases the risk of transmission. The number of cases identified to date is higher than expected for this time of year. Bubonic plague is spread by infected rats via flea bite while pneumonic is transmitted person-to-person. The current outbreak includes both forms of plague. Nearly half of the cases identified so far are of pneumonic plague. The last reported outbreak in December 2016 was mainly bubonic plague occurring in remote area.
As Bubonic and Pneumonic plagues spread in Madagascar UN health agency ramps up response
The rodents and their fleas were thought to have spread a series of outbreaks in 14th-19th Century Europe. But a team from the universities of Oslo and Ferrara now says the first, the Black Death, can be "largely ascribed to human fleas and body lice". The study, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, uses records of its pattern and scale. The Black Death claimed an estimated 25 million lives, more than a third of Europe's population, between 1347 and 1351. "We have good mortality data from outbreaks in nine cities in Europe," Prof Nils Stenseth, from the University of Oslo, told BBC News. "So we could construct models of the disease dynamics [there]."
The bite of rat-borne fleas infected with the bubonic plague has been blamed for disease transmission during the medieval pandemic
He and his colleagues then simulated disease outbreaks in each of these cities, creating three models where the disease was spread by:
* rats
* airborne transmission
* fleas and lice that live on humans and their clothes
In seven out of the nine cities studied, the "human parasite model" was a much better match for the pattern of the outbreak. It mirrored how quickly it spread and how many people it affected. "The conclusion was very clear," said Prof Stenseth. "The lice model fits best." "It would be unlikely to spread as fast as it did if it was transmitted by rats. "It would have to go through this extra loop of the rats, rather than being spread from person to person."
'Stay at home'
