How was the plague eradicated.

[johnk]

Read a book based in the days when the plague was about. I didn't know it could kill in a day. How was it eradicated in those primitive times or did it just die out and why don't we see it today?

[squarebear]

It was eradictaed by people having better hygiene and sanitation. Many doctors in those days just used astrology and other nonsense. We don't see it today due to people not shi**ing in the street and more scientific methods used by doctors.

[237SJ]

Vaccination had a lot to do with it in the western world but it still exists in some places. Africa has a couple of thousand cases a year and there are pockets of it in South America and Asia as well.

[johnk]

Oh dear! Must stop doing that!!

[Ankou]

it came and went over a period of several centuries. it was only really when advancements in medical research (germ studies) and hygiene that the plague notably subsided. although cases were still reported in the us in the 1990's.

"The disappearance of the plague from London after 1665 is still a great mystery. Mutation of the bacteria, improvements in diet and health, the changing built environment may all have had a role."

[tiggerblue10]

I think the Great Fire of London played a big part in the eradication in 1666.

[BertiWooster]

It was the great fire that erradicated it - wasn't it ?

[Hazel104]

I do not think hygiene was a factor as the conditions of the poor of the 1600’s and 1800’s were pretty much the same. There are loads of theories but know one knows for sure.

I think it could have been either a bacteria/virus that evolved and became less virulent or different altogether e.g. Typhus, Ebola. Or is it a bacteria/virus that no longer exists and we do not what it was at all such as ‘English Sweating’ Disease.

[Mosaic]

The thing is, it's now seen as entirely unclear exactly what 'the plague' was and whether it was one epidemic, or several going on at once. It also appears to have been linked to warm weather, as you'd expect, and the combination of vulnerable people dying off and remaining people developing antibodies as well as very cold winters could account for its decline. (http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=ot
her;type=winthist;sess=
for climate stuff). In addition, the Fire of 1666 would have scoured out a main source of infection, ie close-packed housing in London.
What is for sure is that the steps people took to deal with it at the time had no effect.

[pretty_snowdrop]

I am only guessing but i believe the plague killed half the population of Europe in the 12c. Perhaps some died and others developed an immunity which spared them, they in turn passed some immunity onto their offspring. Thus when there were further outbreaks people had more resistance. No doubting that medical science and better hygiene helped in recent years.

[Mosaic]

Snowdrop - I think it's safe to say that whatever was killing people in large numbers in the 1660s, if it was plague, was a mutated form that differed from the Black Death of the middle ages. Hence its success in a population that had no immunity (not that they knew). And hence our fear of bird flu etc.

[sandyRoe]

I think that there occasional outbreaks still in parts of Asia.

[jomifl]

The reduced population reduced the infection rate and some plague free villages isolated themselves until the risk of infection had gone. This was in addition to some of the more sensible explanations above.

[jno]

diseases may kill susceptible people; once these hosts are dead the disease has nowhere to go, and will die out. When it comes back it will be in a different form, the same way flu changes every year or two as the virus mutates. Nobody's quite sure what the Black Death in medieval times was; it might have been a sort of anthrax. The London plague was definitely bubonic plague transmitted by rats.

[Dodger666]

The Derbyshire village of Eyam was infected with the plague in 1665 when a roll of cloth was sent from London infected with plague carrying fleas. Read about it here:-

http://www.eyamplaguevillage.co.uk/

The village is well worth a visit where you can visit the cottages and read the stories about the homes on plaques outside..

[leemarvin]

My answer is just a guess. I don't think it was "eradicated" at all. It simply ran its course and killed all the susceptible victims and others were seemingly miraculously untouched. As to whether it also may have mutated into temporary non-lethal form(s), I have no idea. But it did sweep through Europe from Asia on several occasions, so I don't think "eradicated" is an apt description.

[denis567]

Read 'A journal of the Plague Year' by Daniel Defoe, which tells the story of one man who lived and remained in London, throughout the 1665 outbreak.
It is available free of charge, from Amazon as an ebook

[flitty]

AT SCHOOL WE WERE TOLD THAT THE PLAGUE IN eYAM WAS ERADICATED BY ISOLATING THE VILLAGE AND ANY MONEY FOR FOOD WAS LEFT IN VINEGAR.

[boxtops]

You're right flitty, Eyam barricaded itself off - but I don't think they were exempt from it, they just didn';t spread it any further?

[mikey4444]

I remember being ordered out of a part of Yosemite National Park in 1992, by a Park Ranger. He told us that plague had been detected in the area and it was for our own good. Not sure if that was the same plague but it sure scared the hell out of my friends and I !