as 2,000 people died each day and the number increased each week. During this time, the Roman Catholic Church lost some influence on its people. Jews were blamed for the plague and were massacred. By 1351, the plague had reached Russia. (Rice 1)The third and final big outbreak was the Great Plague of London in 1665, which killed an estimated 17,444 out of the total population of 93,000. (Janis 2) Luckily, the city caught fire and the outbreak was eventually destroyed. By the time the plague began to die out, it had killed 12,597,789 people primarily in India and Asia.The plague spread quickly from person to person, but it did not originate from a human. The Black Death originated from rats or other rodents, many of which lived on ships or in ocean settings. A flea would drink the blood from the rat and the Yersian pestis bacteria would then multiply in the fleas gut. (Jueneman 1) Once the gut was blocked or filled with bacteria, the flea would be forced to bite humans or another animal, thus spreading the disease. Humans could be infected two ways. One way is being bitten by an infected flea and the other way is being exposed to plague infected tissue. Plague is normally enzootic, among rodents. (Janis 3) It is only after a lack of rodents that the fleas have to bite humans.The plague spread very quickly throughout the eastern continent. The main reason it spread so quickly is the extensive trade going on between all the countries. Big ships carrying goods and infected rats or people would sail from China to Europe almost once a week. (Gottfried 34-35) There were three major trade routes. The first route was an overland path through northern China and across central Asia. This path lead merchants to the trading centers along the northern shore of the Black Sea. The second path was primarily by sea and involved the spice trade from south Asia. Ships sailed west across the Indian Ocean into the Persian Gulf, whence good...
