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CONSEQUENCES It is estimated that between one-third and one-half of the European population died from the outbreak between 1348 and 1350. As many as 25% of all villages were depopulated, mostly the smaller communities, as the few survivors fled to larger towns and cities. The Black Death hit the culture of towns and cities disproportionately hard. Some rural areas, for example, Eastern Poland and Lithuania, had such low populations and were so isolated that the plague made little progress. Larger cities were the worst off, as population densities and close living quarters made disease transmission easier. Cities were also strikingly filthy, infested with lice, fleas and rats, and subject to diseases related to malnutrition and poor hygiene. CAUSES It was not until 1894 that scientists discovered the cause of the plague. It came from a germ which lived on that fleas that lived on the Black Rats. When the rats died, the flea moved to live on humans, and the plague germ got into their blood. Towns in the Middle Ages were crowded, dirty places. There was a lot of rubbish about for the rats to feed on. Most people had fleas anyway, so they had no idea that it was the fleas that carried the plague germ.

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14y ago

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