BIOL 2P98 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Electrochemical Gradient, Dark Field Microscopy, Phytane
16 Sep 2016
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Document Summary
Contagious, fatal epidemic disease caused by the bacterium yersinia pestis. Negative bacteria that transfers from person to person, more likely via the bite of a flea from an infected host, especially a rat. Characterized by chills, fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and formation of buboes. Bacteria invade lymph nodes, which swell and are call buboes: blood vessels break, causing internal bleeding, blood dried under the skin (turns black hence the name black death ) Pandemic outbreaks of the plague are responsible for more human deaths than any other infectious disease, other than malaria. During middle ages, the black death killed between and 1/3 of europe"s population: pestis is a gram-negative facultatively aerobic rod; can live in anaerobic conditions. One example: when people travel, disease spreads. Bringing infected fleas from a low density population to a high density population. Pathogenesis: pestis is primarily a rodent pathogen. Humans and other animals are generally accidental hosts infected via the rat flea, xenopsylla cheopis.
