Rats have been on this earth for about 160 million years, but when most people think of their impact on humans, we think of the Black Plague. Until that period, however, rats originated from Asia and spread to Europe and Africa. The common house rat came from India and spent generations doing what they do best: stealing food, killing poultry, and contaminating our resources. They are believed to have colonized Europe and England before us humans did, and they are also believed to have been part of one of the biggest catastrophes in human history.
The Black Death
In 1347, a virus called yursinia pestis arrived in Europe, where it would kill 25-50 million people throughout four years, before subsiding significantly in 1351. The origins of the actual disease are unknown still, but it first appeared in the Crimean Peninsula, in Kaffa, which was a Genoese trading port. From there, it spread across Africa, Asia, and Europe, but the European continent caught the worst of it. So how do rats fit into this?
Like most viruses, pestis needed a host. The fleas found on the coats of rats started to carry the virus, and it’s commonly known today that rats technically carried the disease. This gave rats and other rodents a kind of stigma for centuries following.
The actual disease was similar in nature to common illnesses we contract today. But to the weaker immune systems of the 1300s, fever, vomiting, and aches were deadly. The virus also produced swelling boils, which oozed pus and blood.
Mass panic followed the outbreak. People abandoned their homes, their friends, and their families, desperate to get away from the spreading pandemic. Work was ignored, funerals were soon too much of a hassle to complete, and people spent years terrified.
The year of 1351 is seen as the end of the Black Death. Most believed that the plague was a punishment from God. Others thought that wells were poisoned, the air was bad, or the planet was off its axis. Today, we know that rats spread the disease to humans, who spread the disease among themselves.
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