Quote:
Originally Posted by Turtle
You hoist me on my own petard!?  .  |
I recently said that to a guy I was accusing of ageism in his writing on the net.(being smart)
It turned out he was 90.
You can't win them all
This Quirky History fact surprised me. I thought that the link between the plague rat/fleas/man and the plague (Bubonic) had been made before the 20C. Not so
It turns out that the link between infected rat/fleas/man was made by two New South Wales (later to become a state of Australia) men, J. Ashburton Thompson and Frank Tidswell.
Their discovery followed an outbreak of bubonic plaque in the Rocks area of early Sydney in 1900. It was spread by fleas from infected rats that had come ashore from ships. Once the link to rats was realised quarantine measures were taken and thousands of rats destroyed. The disease was eradicated in Australia by 1906
I believe there are still deaths from Bubonic plague in USA today.
