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.

Yes and only 1.56 million peoples died

Rats and mice require no vaccinations and carry no diseases. The Plague of the fourteenth century Europe was caused by the flea, carried by the rat and other species of animals including man. Because of the rats close proximity to man throughout history, they have been unfairly blamed for this catastrophe.

Of course not. Infected fleas bit the rats and it spread to humans. Everyone blames odd and new and sometimes really dangerous sicknesses on rats. I have to pet rats at home and I haven't gotten the plague yet!

The rats did start the plague. However it was what the rats carried that caused all the problems. Fleas carried a harmful disease, once they transferred to humans the humans became infected. But as it was a pandemic, it spread to anyone who came near the infected.

No, the fleas on the rat did. They bit the rat and the bacteria from the rat multiplied in the fleas stomach and then the flea bit a human and the human got infected.