Thanks to our good friend Dr. Michael Rosco

[RAA Preface: Read further on how the Bubonic Plague was the result of the first documented use of Biological Warfare, and that it was inflicted on Genovese/Italians.

I do advocate "reasonable" hygenic caution always, but not hysteria.

There has been entirely too much press about the SARS “epidemic.”
About 600 people have died to date, with mortality rates running from 4 to 30%
depending upon whom you believe.

I will show you an epidemic, and you decide. In 1918 there was a PANDEMIC
which killed approximately 30 MILLION people in one year. 675,000 Americans died. In a typical case, a man would come home from work on Monday, develop a cough on Tuesday, and a fever on Wednesday. By Thursday he would be dead.
That is an epidemic.

That outbreak of the flu killed more people in one year than at any other time in history, including the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351 (a four-year horror.)

[RAA Note #1: In 1918, the US population was 104 million. Today it is 290 million,
almost 3 times as many. For porportionality's sake, almost 2 million Americans would have to die to approach the horror of 1918.]

[RAA Note #2: The population in Europe was:

1300 70 million
1347 75 million
1352 50 million

25 million people died in just under five years between 1347 and 1352.
ONE-THIRD of the Population of Europe.
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14TH CENTURY BUBONIC PLAGUE, FROM CHINA TO EUROPE

The Bubonic Plaque originated in China, and had been carried to the Black Sea via the traditional trade routes, and thence carried to Sicily, or Marseille or both via Italian Merchant Ships, and thence into Europe.

One wonders whether Sicily/Italy being one of the First entry point to Europe, and it's Warmest might have suffered the greatest.

Details below:
 

In the early 1330s an outbreak of deadly bubonic plague occurred in China. Plague mainly affects rodents, but fleas can transmit the disease to people. Once people are infected, they infect others very rapidly. Plague causes fever and a painful swelling of the lymph glands called buboes, which is how it gets its name. The disease also causes spots on the skin that are red at first and then turn black.

Since China was one of the busiest of the world's trading nations, it was only a

matter of time before the outbreak of plague in China spread to western Asia and Europe. In October of 1347, several Italian merchant ships returned from a trip to the Black Sea, one of the key links in trade with China. When the ships docked in Sicily, many of those on board were already dying of plague. Within days the disease spread to the city and the surrounding countryside. An eyewitness tells what happened:

"Realizing what a deadly disaster had come to them, the Sicilians quickly drove the Italians Merchants from their city. But the disease remained, and soon death was everywhere. Fathers abandoned their sick sons. Lawyers refused to come and make out wills for the dying. Friars and nuns were left to care for the sick, and monasteries and convents were soon deserted, as they were stricken, too. Bodies were left in empty houses, and there was no one to give them a Christian burial."

The disease struck and killed people with terrible speed. The Italian writer Boccaccio said its victims often
 

"ate lunch with their friends and dinner with their ancestors in paradise."

By the following August, the plague had spread as far north as England, where people called it "The Black Death" because of the black spots it produced on the skin. A terrible killer was loose across Europe, and Medieval medicine had nothing to combat it.

In winter the disease seemed to disappear, but only because fleas--which were now helping to carry it from person to person--are dormant then. Each spring, the plague attacked again, killing new victims. After five years 25 million people were dead--one-third of Europe's people.

Even when the worst was over, smaller outbreaks continued, not just for years, but for centuries. The survivors lived in constant fear of the plague's return, and the disease did not disappear until the 1600s.

Medieval society never recovered from the results of the plague.

[RAA Note: However, some substantial benefits sprang from this horror, including
the decline of the use of Classical Languages and the rise of the Vernacular, the exploding use of non elitist Literature, the greatly increased number of Books, and decrease in Price (even before Gutenburg), the spread of learning to the lower classes, the Decentralization of Universities, their  changing to more practical Curriculums,  and the bringing down of  the strictly regimented Feudal social structure, enabling the emergence of a Merchant class. The lower classes were in a period of new found wealth for the first time in history.]

The Black Death: Bubonic Plague
http://www.byu.edu/ipt/projects/middleages/LifeTimes/Plague.html
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THE FIRST DOCUMENTED USE OF BIOLOGICAL WARFARE:

The plague first came into contact with Christian Europe at a Genoese trading settlement on the coast of the Black Sea.  In 1345 the settlement of Caffa was unsuccessfully besieged by Kipchak Kahn Janibeg. ( At this time the Mongol Kahns enforced the a military peace along the overland trade route that ran overland through the Kipchak Khanate, or "Golden Horde." )

This Mongol Kahn failed in his first attempt to drive out the Genoese, but a second attempt in 1346 proved successful.  This is due to one of the first documented usages of biological warfare.

During the siege the Kahn's camp was hit by an outbreak of bubonic plague.  Realizing the need to both dispose of the bodies and shorten the seige, the Kahn ordered the bodies of his soldiers to be catapulted over the walls, and into the city of Caffa.

Within months the citizens were hit by the disease, and fled the city, carrying plague with them.  By January of 1348 the plague had reached Marseille in France and Tunis in Africa. By the end of the next year the plague had reached as far as Norway, Scotland, Prussia, Iceland, and Italy. In 1351 the infection had spread to include Russia.

Plague in History
http://www.larrythecrocodile.com/history.htm
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THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE PLAGUE:

For those who thought, as I, that the Fall of the Roman Empire was due mainly to it's Political, Social and Moral Decay, and Economic Excesses of the Rulers, Excessive Taxation on the Middle Class, and Expensive Welfare Programs for the Suppressed Masses, the Final Straw might well have been the Bubonic Plague of the 6th Century. Read Below.

Bubonic Plague has been one of the most continually present diseases in the history of humankind.  Originally a disease only native to northern Africa, the continued advancement of human civilization has spread it all around the world.  The Mediterranean trade routes of the 6th century spread it along the port cities of the Byzantine Empire and established new natural reservoirs among the rodent population of Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

In 541 A.D. Plague flared up all along the trade routes of this flourishing society, causing great devastation and severely weakening the central authority of Justinian.

The plague seemed to eminate from the Sudan or Ethiopia, and then spread along the caravan routes of eastern Africa.  It is probably "Justinian's Plague" that is most directly responsible for the continued freedom of German tribes from Byzantine rule.

The Germanic tribes had begun to dominate parts of the former Roman empire and Emperor Justinian had assembled an army to reclaim these western lands.  This army never marched due to the widespread death and disorganization that the plague spread.  Within 200 years the last vestiges of the Roman empire had collapsed and Muslim Arabs had taken control of the Byzantine empire.

Plague in History
http://www.larrythecrocodile.com/history.htm