Did Rats Really Start The Plague?

The largest outbreak of bubonic plague occurred in England from 1665-1666. It killed up to 100,000 people.

The disease had been found in the Netherlands for some years before the Great Plague, and it is generally thought that it was carried from Holland on ships stocked with bales of cotton. It is thought that rats living inside the bales brought the disease. Strictly speaking, however, rats were not the immediate cause of the plague. Rather, the rodents acted as what is known as a 'vector'. This term describes an organism which does not actually carry a disease, but rather spreads infection by carrying bacterial causes of a disease.

There were also secondary causes of the disease. The particularly hot summer led to the quick spread of infection, while a general lack of public sanitation meant that any chance of containing the disease was slim.

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The fleas the rats were carrying is what caused the bubonic plague not the rats themselves.

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