Bubonic Plague affected Europe in the Middle Ages. Experts in the Medieval Age believe the epidemic started in China. Bubonic Plague is spread by rodents such as rats and prairie dogs. It is passed from the rodents to humans by the fleas that bite the rodents. When the fleas bite the rodents, they become infected with the disease. They give the disease to the humans by biting them after they are infected. In some parts of the world, rodents are still carriers of the plague.
Bubonic Plague affected Europe in the Middle Ages, specifically in the years between 1347 and 1351. Bubonic Plague first struck in China around 1330. It is thought that rodents carrying the disease traveled from the Middle East to Russia. Then, traders heading west along the routes became infected and spread the disease. Next the plague hit small Italian villages near the Black Sea. Merchants spread the disease from Italy to Egypt in 1347. From Egypt it moved to Libya in 1348.As the plague traveled along the trade routes it hit Pisa, Florence, Rome, Bologna, and Venice. After it left Venice, it spread to Germany and Austria. Then, it went across the Tyrhennian Sea to Spain and France. Bubonic Plague hit Paris in early June of 1348. It attacked England in late June of 1348. Milan was one of the only Italian cities not hit by Bubonic Plague. Europe lost about one third of its population to the Black Death. Bermen, located in Germany, lost about 60 percent of its citizens. Florence lost nearly half of its residents. Paris lost about 50,000 people. Marseilles experienced the last significant epidemic in 1722. The last metropolitan outbreak of the Plague was in Los Angeles in 1924-1925.
