The Black Death
Short History Of...
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The Pestilence of the Mediterranean
In a world where there is no motorized transport, over land, pretty much the fastest that you can move is about 30 miles a day or so. If you're not pushing it too much, ships don't have that problem though. And especially if you've got a good prevailing wind, you can really cut around and actually move very, very quickly. That's one of the problems when everybody gets plague suddenly, because the Mediterranean is a very, very busy shipping route. The disease then moves from person to person. Those parasites living upon the rats that populate trading ships in such huge numbers. When their rat hosts die, these bacteria carrying fleas excel at finding new hosts. Non-
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